


How to Walk in Lightning

by afterandalasia



Series: Life Built on Snow and Ashes [8]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), Frozen (2013), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: (Not by the Berkians), Action/Adventure, Allies to Enemies, Alternate Universe, Battle, Betrayal, Captivity, Crossover, Dragon Riders, Elsa (Disney) Has Ice Powers, F/M, Harm to Animals, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Has a Saving People Thing, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Plotty, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-11-05 05:38:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 239,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11007102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: This is Berk. Other Vikings think we're weird, southerners think we're bizarre, and everyone tends to look at me in a funny way from time to time. I've been coming to appreciate just how much work it takes for my father to keep the peace - only now, it looks like we've got enemies cropping up in more places than ever.A year since the discovery and fall of the Red Death, things have changed more than Berk could ever have imagined. There are dragons all over the village, a magic-using wildling living openly among them, and that's without people even knowing that the Queen of Arendelle is living in Hiccup's workshop, and not hiding in Arendelle Castle as the Silver Priests would have the world believe.Returning to Dragon Island in the hope of settling some ghosts, what Hiccup wants is to clear his mind so that he can think of addressing the issue of Arendelle. Instead, he finds people that Berk thought were allies might be their enemies instead, and the world is only getting more dangerous around them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashleybenlove](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ashleybenlove).



> Welcome, welcome! We're well off-script by now, for Frozen and HTTYD, and hopefully some of those Chekhov's guns that have been lined up in the first three fics will really start to go off in earnest now. This fic is set post- _Frozen_ , with a significant canon divergence, and draws from _Riders of Berk_ and _Defenders of Berk_ but heavily remixed. There are some small pieces from the second HTTYD movie as well. There will be **significant** violence coming up towards the end of this fic, more so than previous ones and enough that I was considering an E rating.
> 
> I read my way through the books during the drafting of this, so more book references do appear - but no knowledge of the books should be necessary.
> 
> This fic is fully drafted, and will be posting once a week, on Fridays.
> 
> A note on shipping: Elsa & Hiccup and Elsa & Anna are platonic only. There are some references to Anna/Hans, in that they're still engaged, but Hans is Sir Not Appearing In This Installment. Gobber/Stoick remains in the background, Stoick/Valka gets increasing references during this fic, and Astrid/Hiccup develops and becomes a more significant subplot. As we get through this fic there might just be some flirtation on Elsa's part with a new character who will be introduced. For endgame ships, see later fics in the [series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/351317), but be warned that way lie spoilers!

Bones loomed out of the fog like standing stones. The weather had barely begun to wear them smooth, and jagged-topped shafts the size of trees emerged from the grey-black sand. Teeth were still scattered, half-buried and then half-revealed by the tide, each as long as Hiccup was tall and blasted white with salt. The remains of the Red Death, battered by a year and still hideous scars on the shore.

Hiccup walked as quietly as he could across the sand, and was still all too aware of its crunching below the sound of the waves. Toothless’s footsteps were inaudible beneath him, but Hiccup did not have to look round to be sure that the dragon was there, a silent shadow at his back. His presence was a relief, even better than the vest and the shield on Hiccup’s back, both with the Night Fury worked into them. Without them all, Hiccup did not think that he would be able to return here at all.

Even being here was making his left leg ache, pain all the way down to the foot that was not even there any more. Gobber had warned him that was likely to happen, coming back here, but it did not stop it. In a way, it was good that his metal foot made a distinctive crunching sound.

Hiccup made his way higher up the beach. They had landed closer to what remained of the skeletons of the hatchlings, but they had broken down, less sturdy and less massive than the bones of the mother. What remained of the hatchlings had been worn by the sea and sand, leaving foot-long smoothed chunks that were not even recognisable as bone unless viewed from the end, where their honeycomb structure was still visible.

One of the long bones of the Red Death stretched along the beach, above even the high tide mark. It was longer than the span of Toothless’s wings, thrice as wide as Hiccup was tall, standing like a low cliff of its own against the black of the rocks behind. Hiccup stilled at the sight of it, feeling his chest tighten, and just for a moment he was _there_ again, screaming down through the air with his throat full of heat and Toothless following him, desperately, reaching down towards him in the scorching sky.

He closed his eyes for a moment, hands curling into fists, and forced it away. A year and more, now. And since then, they had been free.

Breathing deeply, Hiccup opened his eyes again and looked up at the pale wall of bone. Anger flashed. This thing that had dared to keep Berk in danger for all of its existence, that had killed hundreds of Vikings; even after a year, it still dared to leave its impression on the shore.

He snatched his knife from its sheath, the Gronckle iron bright even in the dull daylight, and stepped up to the long bone. Bracing one hand against the surface, he carved with the other, the bone made brittle with rain and salt and making the lines ragged. All the same, Hiccup managed the rough outline of the Night Fury shape, curled round almost in a circle, with only one tail fin.

When it was scratched into place, he stepped back to look it over. The result could hardly be called refined, but it was recognisable as a dragon at least. For a few shaking breaths, Hiccup stood with his eyes locked on it, then he found himself laughing at the absurdity of the whole image. His laughter echoed off the rocks of the cliff, but was deadened by the sea-fog, and slowly he calmed down and came back to himself again as he stepped away.

Toothless nudged his shoulder with a rumble.

“I’m sorry, bud,” said Hiccup. He sheathed his knife, and rubbed Toothless’s nose. “I just realised where I was. Carving glyphs into bone to ward off ghosts,” he added, with a nod to the rough carving. “If there were any ghosts, I’m pretty sure they’d have made themselves known by now.”

That was part of why he had needed to come back here, in the end. To prove to himself that the Red Death was truly dead, and that nothing more than an empty shell of bones remained here. It was still warm on the beaches of Dragon Island, and he wondered whether the sulphurous steam still rose inside the mountain as it had a year ago. That might be a step too far, however, at least for today.

It seemed almost strange to think that after a year, nobody from Berk had returned to Dragon Island. They had spent three centuries looking for it, after all. But what they had really been looking for, Hiccup supposed, was the Red Death, and once it had been defeated there had been no call for them to go back at all. Only when Alvin had demanded to know their ‘Dragon Conqueror’, when Hiccup had needed to get back to the dragons so desperately that he had been willing to risk even Alvin knowing about the fact that the dragons had riders, had they come here at all. And that had hardly been for long.

“Strange,” said Hiccup quietly, looking around. “No sign of dragons.”

There had not been any when they had been here with Alvin, but he had presumed that was because of the very presence of humans. For it to be so quiet again was more noticeable, though, when there had been hundreds of dragons the night that Hiccup had flown here, and when he had flown back with them. Now the beach was silent, other than any sound he made or the soft pulse of the waves behind him, and the hollows of caves in the cliffs were silent yawning mouths.

“Maybe they wanted to leave their ghosts behind, as well.”

He couldn’t blame them.

He considered climbing back into the saddle and taking to the air. Ostensibly, he was here to make a rough map of Dragon Island. Stoick probably would have accepted him taking some days to visit Dragon Island just for his peace of mind, but Hiccup knew that it would not look good. Not when other people had losses here as well, any number of them worse than just a foot. In any case, he had truly wanted to come away from the island with something more than a new set of memories.

Of course, he had not expected it to be fog-bound when he landed, although given Berk’s weather he should not have been that surprised. Instead of flying, and leaving the ground to a grey blur, he intended to walk around the shore and see something more of the island than this one beach and all of its terrible memories.

“Come on, bud. Let’s go for a wander. See what we turn up.”

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup had, somewhat naively, presumed that not all of Dragon Island could possibly be creepy.

After a couple of hours of walking, he was forced to conclude that he may have been wrong on that front. When it was not the beach strewn with bones and driftwood that looked like it had once been part of Viking ships, it was forests that were blackened and leafless, or huge gaping caves into which Hiccup did not particularly want to go. Toothless remained at his side, silent and calm, and as long as that was the case Hiccup was comfortable to keep going.

Despite the fog, it was almost uncomfortably warm. Hiccup clung on to his vest, though, no matter the sweat dampening his armpits and sticking uncomfortably to the small of his back. Taking it off was unthinkable, even scrambling over rocky upthrusts or wading out knee-deep in water to make it around low cliffs that came all the way down to the shore. At least walking gave him something to think of, however, especially when it came to helping Toothless scramble over some of the rocks in turn.

It was while he was in another of the stretches of once-forest that Toothless stopped, sniffing the air. His flaps twitched. Immediately, Hiccup fell still as well, hand going to the strap that held his shield across his back. Gobber was finally relenting on his efforts to shoo Hiccup out of the smithy, and the shield had been the result of that, wooden so far with a metal boss and rim, and room inside for a set of bolas besides. There was supposed to be a mechanism to shoot them, but Hiccup had not been having the best of luck with that. In any case, it certainly worked as a shield, and Hiccup was growing used to the weight of it on his back.

He looked over to Toothless, asking a question in the glance, but Toothless was still sniffing, eyes narrowed and plate twitching.

The wind must have shifted. Hiccup turned into it, bought his shield round and readied it on his left arm, and drew his knife with his right. Even if it was his off hand, it was better than nothing.

“Stay here, Toothless,” he said, walking towards the trees. The ground at his feet was sandy and barren, littered with rotting pine needles and fallen wood, but Hiccup picked his way as carefully as he could and his feet remained silent.

A stronger gust of wind, and he caught the smell of fire. For a heartbeat, he thought that it would be a dragon, but then he recognised the smell of woodsmoke.

Something shifted behind him, and he whipped round with his heart in his mouth to see that Toothless had crept through the forest with him. Heart pounding, Hiccup frowned and sighed, which naturally made Toothless give him the most innocent expression that he could manage.

“Bud,” Hiccup breathed. “Stay _here_.” He gestured with his right hand for Toothless to remain in place. He usually made the movement with his left, but he hoped that Toothless would recognise it all the same.

Backing up a step, then a second, Hiccup repeated the gesture until he was moderately sure that Toothless would remain in place.

A nervous, flighty buzz ran through him as he edged his way through the trees, able to smell the woodsmoke now that he knew it was there. It was hard to hear above the sound of his own heartbeat, but he thought that he could hear something ahead of him, where the trees thinned out. Finally, he saw the warmth of firelight against the trees, and he stepped from trunk to trunk.

Metal rattled. That was neither dragon nor accidental fire, and Hiccup’s hand tightened on the handle of his shield. Part of him wished that he had some of the others with him, but at least this way he could be sure that he remained out of sight.

He stepped from tree to tree again, then caught a clear glimpse of the fire between the trees. A fire on the surface, even, not in a pit; whoever it was did not care about being caught. Leaning round, Hiccup saw a tent set up between two trees, a log pulled up beside the fire with a blanket thrown over it, and finally, grimly, a Monstrous Nightmare skull with the cut of a sword straight across its snout.

Bile rose in his throat, and Hiccup pulled back behind the tree again. His hands were shaking, but he could feel that it was mostly anger, burning, tight in his throat and hot behind his eyes at the thought of some _hunter_ coming to Dragon Island, that releasing it from the cloying thick fog could have allowed this to happen.

He looked to the sky, blue beyond the fog, until the immediate surge of anger passed. He had to find out how many were here, whether there were other camps, before he could think of what to do. Step by step. This time as he scanned the camp, Hiccup looked more critically at the tent; it was large enough that it would take multiple people to erect it, but it was the only one present. Unless the other tents were elsewhere, but that would be a strange excuse for an arrangement. There could not be that many people here, then.

Then again, the doorway was lashed open on one side, and if Hiccup tilted his head he could just see a weapons rack inside, well-stocked. Maybe more people than he was comfortable dealing with.

Come nightfall, he could get onto Toothless’s back, see all of this from the air with the protection of the darkness around them. But nightfall was hours off. Hiccup bit the inside of his lip, wondering whether it would be for the best to return to Toothless and find one of those dark, hollow caves to hide in. Maybe even one partway up a cliff, where these hunters would not be able to reach. But he did not feel comfortable not even knowing how many there were.

“Come on,” he breathed to himself. Whoever they were, they could not be worse than the Red Death.

One last time, Hiccup looked round at the campsite, only for the other half of the doorway to flap with movement and a figure to step out. It did not take more than a blink for Hiccup to recognise him.

Dagur was on Dragon Island.

His first instinct was complete bewilderment. Dagur and his men had barely seemed competent enough to handle a Whispering Death attack, and Berserker Island was on the far side of Berk from here. But, he remembered with a sinking feeling in his gut, Dagur had _enjoyed_ the fight. He had _wanted_ it. Hiccup could easily believe that Dagur would be arrogant enough to go to Dragon Island in a search for death.

“Why hello there,” said Dagur, and Hiccup could have sworn that his blood ran cold. He snapped back to the present, looking desperately at Dagur, only to realise that the man had picked up a crossbow and was examining it, stroking the wooden stock. “Oh yes, you and I are going out hunting again tonight. I must say,” he continued, still addressing the crossbow, “the pickings are rather slim around here, aren’t they? Never mind. Perhaps we’ll find a new species tonight. Or if not, there’s always the odd Nadder, hmm?”

If there had not been a knife in his hand, Hiccup might have put it to his mouth with the nausea that struck him again. A Nadder’s claw hung from Dagur’s belt, and he had added to his costume with a necklace of assorted dragon teeth. They varied absurdly in size, and honestly Hiccup was surprised that Dagur was not cutting his own neck with them, but mostly he was revolted.

Would Dagur be alone? _Could_ Dagur be alone? He was the Berserker chief now, surely he could not go off on some dragon-killing jaunt and leave Berserker Island to its business, but then again Berserker Island was not Berk, and Dagur was definitely not Stoick. Just because Stoick would never think of leaving his people did not mean that Dagur would do them the same courtesy.

He needed time to think, and hiding behind a tree not twenty yards from Dagur’s campsite was certainly not the place. Hiccup sheathed his knife and was considering the best route to escape by when a crossbow bolt whipped past, so close that it almost caught his elbow, and slammed into one of the trees opposite.

Well, that wasn’t good. Hiccup stared in horror at the bolt, embedded in the half-rotting wood, for more heartbeats than he could count before realising that if he waited too long, Dagur would have reloaded.

Pulling his shield up so that it covered as much of his chest as possible, Hiccup spun round and stepped out into clear view. “Dagur! Stop!”

It might have sounded better if he had managed to keep every bit of the wobble out of his voice, but as it was it still made a respectable shout. Dagur was indeed levelling the crossbow again at that moment, but the tip dropped as surprise flooded Dagur’s features.

“Hiccup?” he said.

“In the flesh,” said Hiccup, trying not to let it sound too weak.

Dagur stared at him a moment longer, then let out a wild cackle of laughter. At least he finally pointed the crossbow to the floor, which let Hiccup breathe properly again, but the downside was that he strode across the distance so fast that it was almost running and dragged Hiccup into a one-armed hug. Laughing all the while. That was definitely starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Hiccup! What are you doing here?” said Dagur, squeezing his arm around Hiccup’s shoulders. Hiccup was not entirely sure that the talking was an improvement on the laughing. “No, wait!” He spun Hiccup so they were facing each other, hand tight on Hiccup’s right shoulder. “You must also be here for the hunt. Ha! This must be fate!”

That was not the word that Hiccup would have used.

“Come, be seated,” said Dagur, still not giving Hiccup long enough to successful put together a train of thought, let alone a sentence. He grabbed Hiccup by the upper arm and dragged him over towards the fire. “I have a store of food and drink with me, to supplement my hunting.”

“And – your men?” Hiccup finally managed to say. He tried not to think too much about the word _hunting_.

Hiccup was almost thrust down onto the blanket by the fire. Considering the warmth of the island and his hours of walking, the last thing that he needed was more heat, but he pushed that thought aside. Dagur disappeared briefly into his tent, then emerged with two waterskins in one hand and a wrapped package in the other. He sat down beside Hiccup, who tried to edge away slightly but was only rewarded with a waterskin thrust into his hands.

He managed to catch it right-handed, and reluctantly put down his shield to hold it with both hands. “So,” he pushed again. “Your men. Did you bring many with you?

Dagur made a derisive sound and took a swig from the waterskin. “Camping on another island. They’ll return when I make a signal fire, or come the full moon. No, for now it is just me,” he waved to the forest around them, “and the wild. The lull of the sea and the mighty force of the earth.”

Pulling the cork from his own waterskin, Hiccup had it almost too his lips when he caught the unmistakeable smell of mead. He took a very small sip to confirm his suspicions, before lowering it again.

“But what about you?” said Dagur, the mania in his voice abating. Somehow that concerned Hiccup all the more. Dagur turned so that his upper body was towards Hiccup, leaning towards him. “You must have a… retinue, somewhere.”

The only options he had were both lies, and he did not particularly like the sound of either of them, but Hiccup was aware that he had to say something. “Likewise,” he said. “I wanted to… explore the area alone. Have some time to think.”

Dagur grinned, leaning so closely in that Hiccup could not help leaning back. “Perfect,” he whispered.

Hiccup considered fleeing, and only just persuaded himself not to do so.

“We can be alone together,” said Dagur. “You, me, and the wilds of Dragon Island.” Whooping laughter broke from him, and Hiccup laughed along nervously, not quite sure what he had managed to get himself into this time but starting to have significant concerns. Dagur grabbed Hiccup’s arm, iron-tight, as he abruptly stopped laughing again. “And the _hunt_. Oh, yes, the hunting here is good, brother.”

“Brother?” said Hiccup. His mind recoiled from the idea; it was all that he could do not to physically recoil as well. The word crawled under his skin, and Dagur’s gleaming eyes and predatory grin did not help in the slightest.

“Yes! And tonight, we shall hunt! Me, with my prize crossbow, and you–” Dagur looked him over. “Where _are_ the rest of your weapons?”

Also a lie he probably should have thought through before letting Dagur believe that he was hunting.

“What am I saying,” Dagur corrected himself, slapping Hiccup’s thigh and leaving his hand there. “They’re back at your camp, of course. We must return there and retrieve them.”

“Dagur, I didn’t exactly come here hunting,” said Hiccup. He tried to brush Dagur’s hand off his thigh, and had a terrible sense of history repeating itself when he was not successful. “I came here to – to study the island. It has a history of dragons, after all. I thought that there could be something learned here.”

“Of course, yes, yes.” Dagur patted Hiccup’s thigh again, heavily. “One must learn about them before it is possible to kill them.”

Hiccup cleared his throat. “Dagur,” he said pointedly. Dagur’s smile did not waver. “Your _hand_.”

There was too long of a pause while Dagur looked down at his hand, then removed it, with his expression slipping to a smirk. “Of course,” he said. “Tell me, how is your wife?”

“She’s – she’s good,” said Hiccup. The worst part of lies really was the fact that you had to keep remembering what you had said. At least in the spring the lie had managed to stay fairly simple. “Staying on Berk, at the moment. End of the sailing season and all that.”

Technically, they were getting somewhat out of the sailing season, but Hiccup was hardly going to say that and then face the inevitable question of what he was doing supposedly sailing.

“She’s, uh,” he rambled on, as Dagur was looking something close to interested but not quite and Hiccup could not put his finger on it. “Her sister’s visiting, actually. So they’re spending some time together.”

“Her sister?” Dagur sounded genuinely surprised. It made him look a lot less predatory, and actually made him look more like his actual age as well. Sometimes Hiccup could forget that Dagur was only a few years his elder. “I thought you said that you were not expecting–”

“What? No. No!” Hiccup realised where the conversation was going and attempting to rapidly rein it in. “She’s not – we’re not – it’s not like that. Her sister just wanted to visit Berk. See a bit more of the world.”

He probably should have guessed that would be Dagur’s assumption. The gathering of female relatives just before a birth was hardly something unique to Berk, although he could not have said whether it was the case in Arendelle as well. For that matter, he doubted that he was going to need to find out any time soon.

“Oh,” said Dagur, and the word had a great weight behind it. Not that Hiccup could actually decipher exactly what it meant. Dagur picked up the skin-wrapped parcel he had set at their feet, and used a knife to slit open the cord. It revealed about half a large pie, which would have looked very good under just about any other circumstances. The crust was thick and golden, the meat effectively jellied to stop it from spilling out. Dagur cut a thick slice and all but dropped it into Hiccup’s hand. “So, you decided not to bring her with you on your… expedition?”

“Elsa did not much want to come,” Hiccup said defensively. The worst part was that it was a lie, that he had been the one to want to come here alone and had persuaded the others of that fact. But he wanted to give her a name, and some agency, when Dagur spoke so casually. “Besides,” he weighed the pie in his hand, but did not take a bite. “Everyone needs some time alone every once in a while. Time to think.”

Toothless was still sitting in the forest waiting for him, and that perhaps stung the most. Because this had been meant to be time alone, time with _Toothless_ which was like being alone these days, they were so much a part of each other. And it had been meant to give him time to come to terms with the past of fighting dragons, rather than the future he wanted without their needless deaths.

“Have you ever wondered,” he said, waiting until Dagur had his mouth full, “what it would be like if we didn’t fight the dragons?”

There was a moment’s pause, and then Dagur burst out laughing, spraying half-chewed pie through the air between them. He roared, face reddening, slapping Hiccup’s thigh again as he rocked back and forth in place under the force of his mirth.

Hiccup could feel the anger creeping up his body like a red heat, aching in his thighs and clenching in his stomach. He gritted his teeth and did his best to ride out the waves of Dagur’s laughter, hoping to speak in its wake. Instead, Dagur managed to cackle out words.

“Oh, Hiccup! You bring the funny! Not fight dragons–”

“We fight them out of _habit_ ,” said Hiccup. “Did any of these dragons even attack _you_?”

Though Dagur’s laughter waned to chuckling, as he turned to face Hiccup again, he still looked as if he was caught up in some joke that Hiccup was telling.  “Not fight… oh, Hiccup, Hiccup.” Another slap of Hiccup’s thigh; Hiccup hoped that it would not bruise. “And then we shall breathe the water and drink the earth.”

Hiccup dropped the slice of pie and the waterskin to the blanket, and rose to his feet. His hands were shaking, and all that he could see was the Monstrous Nightmare’s skull, the array of weapons which Dagur had bought. Dagur’s hand wrapped around his arm, and even when Hiccup tried to wrench away he could not escape it.

“I came here to map this island, Dagur, not to kill.”

“And if a dragon crosses your path – what?” Dagur hiccoughed with laughter. “You’ll map it away? Hiccup, come now, you were alongside me at the fight with the Whispering Deaths and that wildling creature. I know you are a capable enough fighter, despite your… disadvantages.”

Doubtless Dagur thought that the addition of the metal foot was just one among many of those. Nowadays, a problem with Hiccup’s foot was less likely than a sprained ankle, and Berk was more than used to feet and hands of metal or wood or leather. From Hiccup’s visits to Berserker Island, he knew that they were not so comfortable with the idea. Of course, Hiccup would admit that the gods had seen fit to favour him in some ways far more than in others, but if he did not have the height to reach a branch from the ground, he had the wit to climb for it.

He knew from experience that Dagur would rather cut the bough from the tree for the sake of one apple.

Dagur’s eyes were gleaming as he gripped Hiccup’s arm, so tightly that Hiccup could feel short nails digging into his bicep. “You are toying with me, Hiccup, are you not? Your name travels around the archipelago, with the news that you killed the Red Death.”

“Perhaps I’m done with death,” said Hiccup, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

He realised, with a strange dull sensation, that he was not scared of Dagur. Hiccup had known Dagur since they were both children, seen him kill animals for the pleasure of it and torture Hiccup and Fishlegs and anyone in range just because he could. The thought of that impulsive, vicious boy with the army of the Berserkers at his back was a terrible one, and Hiccup felt something that might have been fear at the thought of what Dagur might do with it. But Dagur, himself, for all his armour and weapons and the pieces of bodies of dragons he littered around his campsite… Hiccup was not scared of him.

“How much of the island have you explored?” he asked Dagur, against the uncertain look on the older man’s face. Perhaps it was that Hiccup had not been confident enough to talk to him like this before, had sometimes dared to argue but never to speak as if there was no argument at all. “Do you even know the land you’ve been hunting in? A hundred Red Death hatchlings spilled from that mountain, and it took all we had to hold them back. If one came now, neither you nor I could stop it.”

Toothless could, of course. If he had Hiccup on his back to control his tail, and perhaps besides; he was that nimble, that powerful. But if there was one thing that Hiccup had seen, it was that humans were slips of things to dragons, even more so than Hiccup was to the greatest warriors of Berk. Perhaps it was that place as a slip of a thing that had given him a different perspective.

“Then you are saying,” said Dagur, comprehension dawning in his voice, “that we should scout the area before we hunt.”

 _Instead_ of hunting, Hiccup had meant, but perhaps it was at least a start. Perhaps there was still something in Dagur that could be reached, that could hear of the incredible things that dragons could do and the beautiful things that they could be. If Stoick could understand even after what had happened to Valka, if Spitelout could understand for all of his blustering and railing, if so many of Berk could understand after seeing nothing but the worst of dragons for all these centuries… perhaps there was something that Dagur could see as well. Some awe, some respect, something among the myriad of positive, amazing feelings that dragons could bring to the surface.

“We should get to know the area,” said Hiccup. “Why destroy things when you can know them?”

For that, Dagur looked at him as if he had gone truly mad, but then laughed again, and finally released Hiccup’s arm. It stung. “You have some funny ways, but clearly they have served you well so far. Very well. We shall explore this island of yours, and see what we might find there.”

It was not good enough. Not yet. But Hiccup hoped, all the same, that it might be a start.


	2. Chapter 2

­­­­The fog did not abate and neither, apparently, did Dagur’s amusement with the whole idea.

“So, wait, wait,” said Dagur, as they scrambled over rocks. If Hiccup looked back to the trees, he could see shifts of darkness that had to be Toothless. “You think that we could use dragons like… like asses and yaks?” Laughter would occasionally burst from him, in moments that would leave him almost too breathless to keep up with Hiccup. Probably better for Hiccup than striding off through the trees, but possibly even more annoying. “I mean – ha! Now I’m picturing a dragon – behind a plough!”

Hiccup looked up at the sky and considered asking Thor for a bolt of lightning to hit either one of them. The main reason that he did not was because he did not trust the gods to actually not answer his prayer this time around. “Not like yaks, Dagur. We don’t need something else like yaks, we have yaks. But think about it,” he started picking his way down the rocks again. “If you have to move, I don’t know, a whole tree trunk. How would you do it.”

“Roll it on logs,” said Dagur, as if Hiccup were missing the obvious. “Or use the river. What, has Berk not managed to come up with that?”

“Of _course_ we know how to move tree trunks,” Hiccup replied. “But think about how strong dragons must be, to fly, never mind to carry off yaks or break down houses. What if they could move the tree trunks for you?”

“What if the logs could move themselves? Hiccup, it’s all very well seeing a dragon’s strength, but nobody ever has used a dragon like that, and nobody ever will. Why,” Dagur caught hold of Hiccup’s upper arm, bringing him snapping to a halt. “Were you listening to my stories of Skrills?”

There was a sort of amazement in his voice, and the greatest actual interest that Hiccup had heard there so far. For a moment, Hiccup actually considered saying yes, taking the opening that Dagur had offered him. Perhaps Dagur would listen, if he thought that he had inspired this in the first place. But he could not bring himself to betray Toothless like that. All that the talk of Skrills had done was made him wonder if there were a seed of hope in Dagur’s mind as well.

“It… contributed,” he hedged. “But the logs thing is just an example. You think about it, we kill a yak, we get the meat – once. But if we keep it alive, there’s milk, and hair, and horns, and they can be bred for more.”

“A yak isn’t a dragon, Hiccup,” Dagur sing-songed, releasing Hiccup’s arm to stride on ahead of him through the dead, scrubby land they were currently crossing.

Cursing in his thoughts, Hiccup hurried after him. “ _I know that_ ,” he said. “But what if we don’t have to just fight dragons as soon as we see them, Dagur.” If Dagur was going to keep using Hiccup’s name, then Hiccup was going to do the same right back. “What if we look at them as more than just some – some pest, to be wiped out?”

“And what does the rest of Berk think of this?”

Here went nothing. “I haven’t said this to the rest of Berk.”

From the moment that Dagur stopped walking, Hiccup knew that he’d pitched it just right, the tone of the voice with just enough vulnerability, just enough uncertainty, for Dagur to wildly misinterpret the situation. Dagur looked back over his shoulder, and Hiccup let his shoulders slump; he turned, and the hope that Hiccup put into his expression was not entirely faked.

“You…” Dagur sounded touched. “You are coming to me first?”

“What I can say to you and what I can say to Berk are not the same thing, Dagur,” said Hiccup. “But I… I had a theory. And nobody wanted to hear it.” At least at first; that part was true.

Dagur walked back to him, only a few paces but Hiccup could not help a leap of hope. He knew that this was manipulation, pure and simple, and was not all that impressed with himself for doing it, but if it was the only way to get Dagur to listen then it had to be worth it. “A theory?” said Dagur. For him, the tone was gentle.

“What if;” Hiccup paused, licking his lips with a nervousness that was not in the least bit feigned. “What if the only reason that dragons fight us is because we fight them?” He saw Dagur already beginning to frown, and pushed on. “I mean, we fight them because they’ve always fought us, right? We need to strike first, in order to be safe. But what if they think they’re doing the same thing? Just attacking us before we can attack them?”

“Hiccup…” There was disappointment in Dagur’s voice, disappointment and tenderness together, and it made Hiccup feel sick to his stomach. Only the dragons could be worth this. “I’ve heard that some people find it hard to accept that…”

“No!” said Hiccup. “Think about it, Dagur. How did it all start? We don’t even know any more! All that we know is that dragons and Vikings have been fighting for as long as anybody knows, for generations now.”

“And that’s because–”

“We don’t _know_ how it started,” Hiccup said, increasingly forcefully. “Perhaps one dragon attacked one human. Perhaps one human attacked one dragon. _We don’t know_. But the one that was attacked, they communicate that the other isn’t to be trusted. And then next time, they’re the ones that do the attacking. And it just spreads and spreads, and it gets worse, back and forth until nobody knows what we’re even fighting for any more. Until there’s nothing but death, and loss, and throwing away good lives after bad.”

He fell silent, abruptly, realising that he was breathing hard and that Dagur was looking at him in astonishment. The world around them seemed achingly quiet, the fog sucking away all sound into dim grey nothingness, sulphur and sea-rot the only smells on the air.

Finally, Dagur smirked, and shook his head. “You always were a strange one, Hiccup,” he said.

Then he turned, and kept walking, and it was all that Hiccup could do not to scream.

 

 

 

 

 

“Look, just… just go with me here.” Perhaps it was partially the silence becoming too much that made him try one more time.

“Fine,” said Dagur, almost indulgently.

“ _What if_ ,” said Hiccup, putting enough emphasis on the words that he hoped it would finally get through Dagur’s defences, “we didn’t have to fight the dragons?”

“You mean if they just vanished into thin air?” said Dagur, with a roll of his eyes.

“I mean if we didn’t have to fight them.”

For Hiccup, not fighting, not killing, had been the reward in itself at first. And then there had been the discovery, and the amazement, and the wonder that was Toothless and the other dragons. But it had been clear for some time now that for some people, only some sense of _benefit_ would do, that they expected something in return for being decent people and not slaughtering the dragons that were proving to be so much more than dumb beasts.

Dagur wore a look of faint amusement, as if he were humouring Hiccup in some childhood game. Not that he had ever done so, of course, far preferring to drag Hiccup around and force him into whatever _Dagur_ wanted to do, but Hiccup recognised the expression from other people.

“If we didn’t have to fight the dragons,” Dagur echoed, like telling a southern fairy tale, “then I suppose I could finally finish up that little tiff with the Ravaging Reavers of Rockland, without having to concern myself with the losses that would come from crossing the Scauldron-infested seas.”

Well, it was a step towards logical thinking, at least. “Good,” Hiccup half-lied.

“We wouldn’t have any hides for rooves, or teeth for cutting.”

“But we mostly use the hides for rooves to protect against dragon fire,” Hiccup reminded him, “and the teeth to cut dragon hides. We would be fine with slate and steel.”

“I could have more uninjured men for my fleet.”

To send off to battle and get injured by humans instead. But that was at least only an idiocy that would affect humans, not dragons who could not even understand why they were fighting. “And more living men,” said Hiccup.

Dagur’s expression had actually become thoughtful, rare an occasion as that was, even though Hiccup tried to hold back on the bud of hope that threatened to bloom in his chest. The scrubland gave way to another dead forest, leaves long since rotted away to sandy soil underfoot, trees blackened and rotting with the fog and the heat.

“But they would be less experienced. It’s all very well giving a man an axe if he doesn’t know how to use it.”

“Fighting dragons and fighting people isn’t the same, though. You might as well learn by chopping wood.”

“I suppose so…” Dagur glanced at the fog around them, but his eyes seemed to be looking at something beyond it. Hiccup desperately hoped that they were, that he was right and there was something that even Dagur could see.

“So,” he concluded, when nothing further seemed to be coming from Dagur, “if you didn’t have to fight dragons, you would have more fighters, with more time. You’d be able to travel more safely. And in Berk, we’d have more food–”

“No, no, no,” said Dagur, “that would be if the dragons didn’t take your food. Not if you didn’t have to fight them.”

Sometimes, Dagur could show flashes of intelligence at just the wrong moment. Hiccup glared at the back of his head for a moment, then reminded himself that they were at least making slow steps forwards. “Well, that’s part of not fighting them, isn’t it? Because not fighting them means that we don’t go for them, and they don’t go for us.”

Dagur started laughing again, uncontrollably, breaking out into a whoop and a cackle that went on uncomfortably long before it died down.

“Dagur, it’s not that absurd an idea,” said Hiccup, realising a moment too late that he sounded like he was telling off a child. That sort of tone was always very regrettable to take around Dagur. Before he could catch himself, though, Dagur gave another cackle, and pointed at him.

“You – you talked about using dragons like tame animals. But if they’re taking from you, then they’re the ones,” Dagur fought to talk through his laughter, “they’re the ones using you like a farm!”

His laughter overwhelmed him again, and it was all that Hiccup could do to stand still, feeling the derision wash over him. Foolish boy, head full of stories and untruths, believing things are real when they aren’t. Always gets himself into trouble, always needs saving. Costs just to have him in the village. Not useful for anything. Shouldn’t have been allowed to live. Should have been–

“Dagur,” he said, a little too loudly, just to cut through the laughter that Dagur was still reeling with and his own haunting memories of disgrace. “We were having a serious conversation here.”

“Yes, yes, your little hypothetical, it’s very sweet,” said Dagur, though he did at least seem to be making an attempt to rein in his laughter. The crossbow on his back still shook with it, though, the bolts clattering softly in their quiver.

“All the benefits that can come from not fighting dragons.”

“The benefits that could come, yes,” Dagur waved his hand, though, batting the thought away like an overgrown midge. “But that’s no use when the dragons want to fight, is it? No, that is the time for _action_.” He patted the sword at his belt.

Hiccup gritted his teeth until he felt a pain on the right side of his jaw. Last year the thought of meeting Dagur had left him with a sort of dull mixture of resentment and resignation, the physical gap from when they were children no longer a daunting prospect. There would be no more instances of Dagur shooting down birds and trying to force them into Hiccup’s mouth, laughing as bloody feathers stuck to his lips.

“It’s easy to be brave with a sword in your hand,” said Hiccup. “But have you ever tried being brave without one. I carry a shield,” he pointed to it, on his back, “to remind me of that, to remind me that it’s braver to act in defence than it is to go charging wildly in with a weapon–”

“You didn’t even–” Dagur began.

“Because I have stood before dragons with a blade, and I have stood there with nothing at all, and a blade will make you feel braver even when you are being more of a coward. And blades make the war carry on, for decades and centuries, until someone is brave enough to say _stop_.” He jabbed a finger towards the ground at their feet. “And if the Berserkers can finally find the courage to put a stop to their ways, to keep their peace for fifty years–”

“ _Never speak of my father in my presence_ ,” Dagur snarled, grabbing Hiccup by the vest and slamming him back against one of the rotten trees. Hiccup felt it give behind him, smelt decay, but was far more concerned about Dagur’s fists at his chest, Dagur’s face contorted with anger as he drew so close that his breath felt hot on Hiccup’s skin. “Do not _speak_ of that craven old man.

“Everywhere I go, _Osvald, Osvald_ , and they did not see him take the place of _chief_ ,” Dagur tugged on Hiccup’s vest, “and do _nothing_ with it. They did not see him waste what fighting skill he had – and he could fight,” Dagur said, voice half-emphasis and half-defensive. “There were those who would have overthrown him, and he defeated them all, all of them until I.” There was a manic glint in his eye, and it seemed to have been far too long since he had blinked. “And he wasted all of that time, all of that… potential. You know not to waste potential, don’t you, Hiccup?”

This would have been intimidating, once, Hiccup thought dully. Dagur had him pushed back hard against the tree, bark biting damp at the nape of his neck, rough in his hair. The crossbow and bolts were visible over Dagur’s shoulder, not gleaming in the dull light but still bright enough to make their point, and the multitude of spikes across Dagur’s armour were more than communicative enough. But one call, and Toothless would swat him away like a fly. Start another battle, all for Hiccup’s safety.

But that was not the path they were taking, never had been. “No, Dagur,” said Hiccup, words low and with the warning in them barely restrained. “I don’t waste potential.”

For a moment longer, Dagur stayed looming over him, leaning too close, looking too intensely. Then he smirked, and released Hiccup’s vest to smartly smack his cheek twice over before stepping away. It didn’t sting, but Hiccup felt a dart of anger for it anyway.

“Good to know. I’d hate to think that brain of which you were so proud was going to waste.”

 

 

 

 

 

As the day wore on, Hiccup was starting to appreciate just how little of Dragon Island he had actually seen in the time that the Red Death had been here. Dagur did not seem to notice, beyond reaching for his crossbow or sword whenever a branch creaked or a stone fell in the distance, but Hiccup kept his thoughts clear enough to pay attention to his surroundings, and how they passed from area to area as they moved around the great volcano. Beaches in shades of grey and black, mixed coniferous and deciduous forest now dead and rotting, bare bands of volcanic rock reaching down to the sea. He would not be able to map it until the fog was clear, but having an idea was at least a start.

The fog thinned out, and from time to time Hiccup glanced over his shoulder. He never saw Toothless, but once or twice thought that he saw a shadow moving in the fog behind them. Its silence made it reassuring.

Thunder rumbled about the time that Hiccup was starting to feel pangs of hunger, the main sign that the day was getting on with the world and solid grey around them. He did not want to eat anything from Dagur, though, and his own supplies were with Toothless. Luckily he had been carrying his waterskin, and kept to that rather than the mead which Dagur had given him.

The rain did not come gradually. In a manner that would have made Berk proud, the heavens opened, and lightning flashed overheard with thunder a few seconds behind it.

Within seconds, Hiccup’s hair was plastered to his face, and his shirt was soaked. His cloak was with Toothless as well. He sighed to himself and turned his eyes downwards, more careful where he put his metal foot as the weather deteriorated.

“Hiccup,” said Dagur sternly, “the cave. Come on.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” said Hiccup. Although the rain was heavy, it was not stinging-sharp, and the air was still warm. A good fire, or even sunlight if the fog cleared completely, would be enough to dry them off.

Dagur scowled like a child. “It will damage the crossbow strings.”

Which was Dagur’s own fault, considering he had not bought anything with which to keep them dry, but Hiccup held his tongue on that front. “You go,” he said, with a nod to it. “I’ll keep walking. If the fog clears, it’ll be better for mapping.”

Suspicion filled Dagur’s eyes, and he stalked closer, grabbing Hiccup by the arm and leaning to peer right into his eyes. That was hardly what Hiccup needed. “Are you trying to… get away from me, brother?”

The word was like claws down Hiccup’s spine, raking every step of the way. “What?” he said, feigning offence. “Why would you think that? It’s not as if I’m going to leave the island.”

At least, he had not been planning to. As soon as he spoke the words, he realised how tempting the idea was, but he knew that it would only cause trouble in the long run. However he was going to deal with Dagur, he would have to do it now, and a cave was perhaps a better place to try to start another argument than was the open rain-filled plains.

“Fine, I’m coming,” he said, before Dagur could come out with an answer. Hiccup was not sure he wanted to know what it might be.

The cave was deep and narrow, and the weak sunlight did not seem to reach very deep into it. The walls were rough granite, so dark as to be almost black, and the floor was gritty beneath their feet as they stood in the entranceway.

Hiccup swept his hair back off his face, leaning to the side to squeeze as much water out of it as he could. There were some advantages to shorter hair, at least. Setting his shield aside, he shrugged off his vest to shake the rain off it, then leant it against the wall as he tried to squeeze water out of his shirt in turn. Engrossed in his task, it took him perhaps too long to see Dagur’s curious gaze on the vest at his feet.

“Is that a dragon?” he said.

Hiccup hoped that it would be to his credit that he barely paused in wringing out his shirt. “Of course,” he replied. “You have a Skrill on your belt, don’t you?”

“The Skrill is the dragon of my people,” said Dagur. He sounded as if he were trying to threaten Hiccup, but Hiccup honestly did not know what for. “We wear it to remind our enemies of our strength, our speed, our _ferocity_.”

“And Berk has its own dragon symbols,” Hiccup replied. He grabbed the vest and dragged it back on, unwilling to have Dagur’s eyes on it any longer. It made him feel too exposed, like part of his chest was flayed open. At least his shield was turned towards the wall. “Each dragon is different. They mean different things.”

“And which one is _that_?”

Hiccup’s hand tightened on his vest, feeling the reassurance of the leather on his palm. It felt as if Toothless’s form was burning against his back, almost painful but _essential_ all the same, like coming into a warm room after too long in the cold of winter. But he knew how recognisable the shape was, how unique. “It’s the Night Fury,” he said.

“Huh.” Dagur put his crossbow back on his back, apparently satisfied with it, and leant one hand on his hip as he regarded Hiccup. “I don’t recall that being among Berk’s symbols before. Or even confirmed as real, despite the stories that I’ve been hearing.”

“Things don’t need to be real to have meaning,” said Hiccup.

“So what _does_ it mean?” Dagur narrowed his eyes.

All right, he should have seen that coming. Hiccup held onto the vest so tightly that his knuckles ached, but forced himself to keep his expression calm. “It means being lightning-fast,” he said, voice becoming dangerously quiet, “and inexorable as death. It means being part of the sky itself, invisible, untouchable. It means being power in flight.”

The words hung in the air, as Hiccup realised he might have gotten a little carried away with that one. Dagur looked at him in astonishment, then burst out laughing, the sound echoing and rolling around the cave, booming in and out of them.

“Oh, Hiccup,” he said. “You are a riot. A riot!”

 

 

 

 

 

The rain did not pass quickly. Hiccup tried not to fume, leaning so close to the entrance of the cave that he was still getting damp with the rain; at least it kept him further away from Dagur. Having apparently decided that Hiccup was either mad or traumatised by his interactions with dragons, and had chosen instead to distract him with talk of what he was doing with his fleet.

“We have a new chief’s ship being built,” Dagur said, overly loudly for the small space. “It’s a necessity, really, the old one was… not at all imposing. This will be a proper drekkar. Thirty yards long, and it will carry a hundred men.”

He paused, probably expecting Hiccup to have some input, but after the spectacles that had come of trying to talk about dragons, Hiccup was not really in the mood. He kept his eyes on the rain and the fog, and wished that he could see Toothless out there.

“The sails will carry the emblem of the Skrill, of course,” Dagur continued when it became clear that Hiccup was not going to answer. “Black against white, a ferocious beast to warn our enemies of what is to come. Of course…”

The way that Dagur trailed off was as much a warning as the scrape of his armour against the stone when he stood. Hiccup turned, but not quickly enough, as Dagur crossed the space between them and slammed one hand against the wall beside Hiccup’s head, pinning him back against the rock. The movement was more than a little familiar, and Hiccup did his best not to scowl.

“We were going to have the figurehead be a Skrill as well, to fit the… theme, if you will.”

At least this was a better topic of conversation than the last time Dagur had pinned him against a wall like this. Though technically, that had been a door.

“Unless you have another suggestion?” Dagur flicked a finger against the plain front of Hiccup’s vest. “What other dragon would be fitting for the Berserkers, do you think?”

For all of his temptation to suggest Stinkdragons, Hiccup behaved himself and resolutely did not. He even held Dagur’s gaze across the too-short distance. “Armorwings could work,” he said. “They cover themselves in metal – raw ore, armour, weapons of its enemies. Anything.”

To hide their soft skin beneath.

To judge by the impressed look on Dagur’s face, however, he did not know that part, and took the suggestion as the compliment Hiccup made it sound like. Dagur nodded slowly, a smirk forming on his lips, as he at least dropped his free hand down to rest on his hip, out of the way. “Armorwing,” he said. “I like the name. Where did you hear of them?”

“Someone who moved to Berk,” said Hiccup. “One of the nights in the Great Hall, people got to exchanging stories of the more unusual dragons they’ve seen.”

Gobber had bought up his Boneknapper, which not everyone was convinced actually existed. But later the same evening Phlegma had talked about a dragon her husband had once claimed to have seen, the Armorwing, and whether it was just that it was a slightly different dragon, that everyone was teasing Gobber that evening, or that the mead had been flowing for longer and people were more gullible, they had believed it. It was supposed to have been seen substantially north Berk or Outcast Island or even Dragon Island.

“Hmm, very true. And you know, Hiccup,” said Dagur, and every time the name left his lips it made Hiccup’s skin crawl and his hands want to curl into fists. He opened his mouth to speak again, when there was a faint sound deep in the cave behind them.

Dagur snapped upright and looked round, eyes hardening into the blackness of the cave. They had not checked the depth of it when they entered; it had been intended only as a brief shelter against the rain, but the weather had not relented.

“We should go,” said Hiccup. He straightened up from the wall, and took the opportunity to step away as well. “This island hasn’t been mapped, that’s what I came here for. There might still be pockets of dragons here, even after the Red Death.”

As soon as its name left his lips, he felt a clench of fear in his stomach. Everyone had argued about how many hatchling Red Deaths there were; legend said that the Red Death would lay a hundred eggs, but Hiccup knew that in legends as much as anywhere else, things could have meaning without being real. Numbers were among them.

The infant Red Deaths, just hours old, had already been able to breathe fire. They had killed people. If one had _survived_ , if it had _grown_ , then a year would have made it too large to face, certainly too much for humans. Perhaps with dragons, they could have taken it, but even then Hiccup would not want to. Not now, and not without preparation.

“Good,” said Dagur. “I had been planning to wait until this evening to hunt, but this will do instead.” Smiling with all too many teeth, he pulled his crossbow off his back, drew a bolt from the quiver, and set it into place, all in swift and fluid movements.

There was iron around his chest, making each breath an effort, and Hiccup wasn’t wholly sure that the darkness in his vision was just to do with the depths of the cave. “No, Dagur,” he said, and hated his voice for wobbling. “You don’t understand. This could be one of the Red Death’s offspring–”

“A hatchling?” Dagur laughed, wild and whooping, and the sound rattled around Hiccup’s head. There were teeth in it, as large as a man and glittering-sharp and _no_ , that had been the mother, a hatchling could not have grown that large in a year even if it had survived.

If it had survived.

He could not say with good conscience that it had not.

“Not any more,” said Hiccup. His head swam, and he felt his legs ache with the sudden strain just to hold himself upright, but he managed to hold his words, at least, mostly steady. “And believe me when I say, Dagur, that the least of the Red Deaths is worse than the greatest of Nightmares. We cannot face one.”

Scoffing, Dagur grabbed him by the upper arm; this time, Hiccup could not manage to pull away, the world spinning too much. He might have been shaking, wasn’t even sure that he wasn’t. All that he could see was the Red Death, hear its roaring in his ears with every rushing beat of his heart.

“You and I together, Hiccup? There is nothing we cannot face. Come, let us make a torch. You… can carry it, with your shield, while I have my crossbow.”

“Dagur, a crossbow is a weapon for open ground, no matter what’s in there. And even then, the Red Death, you don’t understand what it is. The Red Deaths are… unthinkable.”

For a moment, Dagur’s smile faltered as he peered into Hiccup’s face. “You’ve… seen them. Does that word mean what you think it means?”

“It means that if it is a Red Death, it will kill us both,” Hiccup snapped.

“Oh, Hiccup. You and your humility;” Dagur pinched his cheek. “You’re adorable.”

“Dagur,” he said, through gritted teeth.

Dagur cast around the cave, then grinned again as his eyes fell upon a stick of wood at the base of one of the walls. He snatched it up, ripped a strip off the base of his shirt, and wrapped it around the head of the swift-forming touch.

Shaking his head, Hiccup hurried over, trying to pull the torch away from Dagur’s hold. “No. Even if it isn’t a Red Death, you would have no chance against it in these tunnels. Dragons have _every advantage_ somewhere like this. They can smell us, they can hear us, they can see better than we can. They have their teeth and their claws, and they are a lot faster than we are.”

“And that’s why we have weapons,” said Dagur. He produced a smaller skin from his belt, poured it over the head of the torch, and then set about fumbling for his knife. “Well, weapons or…” he waved the knife in Hiccup’s direction vaguely, then changed his mind and thrust the torch at him instead. “Hold that. Weapons or brains, I suppose.”

It was a choice between drop the torch on his feet or catch it, and Hiccup’s reflexes refused to allow him to drop anything flammable. He held it arm’s length, though, as it was lit, and when Dagur tried to swipe it back refused to let go.

“Dagur,” he said. “No. This is suicide.”

“Are you afraid, Hiccup?” said Dagur. He still had his knife out, and his voice dropped as he peered close to Hiccup again, narrowing his eyes. “What they said about you… was it lies? Have you been lying to me?”

“It’s called prudence,” he hissed. “I don’t want to see the Chief of the Berserker tribe getting himself killed for some… some slip in tactics!”

Dagur wrested the torch back out of Hiccup’s hand, the firelight making deep shadows as he scowled. “Tactics are a trick for the weak to pretend to be strong,” he snarled. “What matters is the sword, and the arm that wields it. Unless Berk has turned to _trickery_ , and can no longer be _trusted_ …”

Dagur the Deranged, he had called himself. He talked about war and ships and killing, and the thought of an unknown dragon made him turn to fighting rather than to retreat. And, most worryingly, he had somehow ended up at the helm of the Berserkers, and on a whim could steer not just them but the whole of the archipelago into a storm that could last another generation.

He could not be allowed to go into the caves unaccompanied; that much was clear. The last thing that Hiccup wanted to do was enter them, not when they did not know what was in there. It could be another Red Death. It could be something worse. But letting anyone else go alone into that unknown was not an option, let alone Dagur.

“Give me the torch,” said Hiccup.

He extended his hand, but Dagur looked mistrustful.

“I’ll come with you. Let me carry the torch so that you have both hands free.”

It was a dangerous thing to do, and the only defence that Hiccup could muster was that he was not the one starting the foolishness. Not that whatever was in the caves would care much which of them had started it.

But for all of the foolishness, he must have looked determined enough. Dagur gave him the torch, and Hiccup’s fingers stopped shaking as they wrapped around it. He picked up his shield again, keeping it turned away from Dagur in case the symbol of the Night Fury there was spotted as well, and ignited the fury bubbling beneath the surface between them.

Dagur readied his crossbow again, a manic glint in his eye. Hiccup could only hope that whatever finally taught him his limits would not be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One _Princess Bride_ reference, and one _Steven Universe_ reference. Idk guys, my influences come from all over the place.


	3. Chapter 3

The tunnels were dark, uneven and twisting. Hiccup knew that it was still daylight outside, but it was weak and had not followed them beyond the first turn. Then it was firelight, and the sounds of Dagur’s armour that seemed too loud, and nothing more.

At least Dagur had stopped talking. It was not the ideal situation, which would be not being in here at all, but at least Hiccup no longer had to listen to talk of hunting or war or whatever Dagur had settled upon this time around. Frankly, he hoped that Dagur would just get bored of the whole thing, and that the rain would have ended by the time that they made it to another tunnel entrance.

There was a crunch of rock behind them, and Dagur whirled, bringing his crossbow up. Hiccup almost went to knock it down, knowing that if anything was behind them in the corridor it was most likely to be Toothless, but that would hardly fit with the game that he was having to play. As it was, he turned as well, keeping the torch out of Dagur’s eyes out of a habit of preserving people’s night vision, and held still and quiet until Dagur lowered the crossbow slightly again.

“Might just be unstable stones,” he said quietly.

Dagur made a non-committal noise, and turned back again, never looking towards the torch. Trying not to feel too much like a lackey, Hiccup continued with him along the winding tunnel. It felt as if it was sloping slightly downwards, and was definitely getting warmer as they travelled.

A shift in the look of the stone up ahead made him stop, and when Dagur went to continue he cleared his throat pointedly. With a heavy sigh, Dagur stopped, but did not look around. “What is it now?”

“Up ahead. Can’t you see? There’s a sort of bluish light on the rocks.”

“It’s just different rocks in the firelight,” said Dagur. “I don’t see anything.”

But Hiccup was fairly sure that he did. There was a hollow in the floor deep enough to keep the torch standing upright, and he slotted the end of the wood into it, leaving it standing proud of the floor. Dagur rolled his eyes with an associated tilt of his head, but Hiccup ignored it, keeping his knife sheathed but readying his shield as he reached the bend in the tunnel.

As he reached it, though, his uncertainty faded, and Hiccup could not help smiling. The tunnel opened into a cavern, and it was beautiful; in the inky blackness, blue-white lights glimmered on the walls, the ceiling, shifting slightly here and there. It was as if the stars had been strewn across the rock faces. As his eyes slowly adjusted, the blurry glimmers sharpened against the darkness, and stepping close to the wall Hiccup could see the tiny creatures behind them.

He heard the scrape of a foot on stone, and spun faster than he had meant to, coming face to face with Dagur again. Dagur’s face was twisted with incredulity, and he squinted up at the ceiling looking not at all impressed about it.

“What is this?” he said.

“Glowworms,” said Hiccup. He had heard of them, but never seen them before. “They’re a type of dragon.”

It was work to hide the excitement bubbling in his words, and he knew that he was smiling all the same. Slipping his shield onto his back to free both hands, Hiccup wiped them on what felt like the driest part of his tunic, and carefully reached out to pick one of the glowworms off the wall.

They looked like worms from a distance, and the name had stuck, but in his hand they were dry to the touch, soft-scaled but scaled all the same, with four stubby vestigial limbs and spine-like projections that were probably once wings. They fluttered as he picked it up, and he made a hushing sound, like had always worked with the hatchlings. Sure enough, the glowworm settled in his palm, and he looked more closely at its tiny head, seeing its eyes and the line of its mouth.

Dagur made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. “Dragons, those? You said it yourself, they’re worms.”

“Glowworms aren’t worms, and Nadders aren’t snakes, Dagur,” said Hiccup wearily. The word nadder might be a very old one these days, old even when Deadly Nadders were given their names, but there were still those who remembered that it existed. “These are dragons, all the same.”

Finally letting his crossbow point to the ground, held only in one hand, Dagur stalked over and peered at the glowworm in Hiccup’s hand. His lip curled. He reached out and snatched it, squeezing it between thumb and forefinger until it writhed.

“Hey!” said Hiccup. He grabbed the glowworm back, forcing his hand between Dagur’s fingers and turning it to force the older boy’s fingers apart and let the glowworm drop into his palm. He had learnt long ago how to take things back from people stronger than him. Against Dagur’s growl of anger, he clutched the glowworm to his chest. Perhaps it had been foolish to think that Dagur would grow out of some of his childhood behaviours. “There’s no need for that, Dagur.”

“What?” said Dagur. “Is it going to hurt me? Is the terrifying glowworm going to burn my fingers off?” His voice sing-songed with mockery. “If it can’t defend itself, it doesn’t deserve to live.”

“It won’t hurt you,” he replied. “It can’t hurt you. But it can light this whole cave, no oil, no wood. If we could keep them, feed them as they need to be fed – they could provide light for us, without smoke, without excess heat in the summer?”

Part of him knew that it was useless to say the words, that Dagur could not see dragons for what they were. Not even these, nigh-defenceless and beautiful. He still had to try, though, had to give Dagur the most of this chance that he could.

Dagur sighed. “Dragons as tools, Hiccup?”

“Dragons as _animals_ , not as _monsters_ ,” said Hiccup. “We keep chickens for eggs. We keep yaks for milk.”

“We hunt boar and stag for meat, and whales for fat, and dragons because they are _dragons_ ,” Dagur retorted.

Hiccup gestured with the glowworm. “And this? You would hunt this? Dagur, not all dragons are the same.”

“A dragon is a dragon. And one less dragon in the world means safety for the women and children back home, and glory for me.”

He went to pluck one of the other glowworms off the wall. Just before his fingers touched it, Hiccup saw where he was reaching, and knocked Dagur’s wrist aside again. Dagur’s fingers slammed into the rock wall instead, and Dagur rounded with a snarl. Once, Hiccup would have flinched away from it, but now even with the light blue and cold around them and Dagur’s face mostly shadowed by his helmet, he did not flinch.

“How _dare_ you–”

“Did you see what you were going to grab?” Hiccup snapped. He pointed at the precise worm for which Dagur had been reaching. “Look. See the red tip to the tail? That’s an Arsenic Adder.”

“You said they were glowworms–”

“They _look alike_ , Dagur, it’s…” Hiccup trailed off with a huff of disbelief. Might as well explain the difference between a hoverfly and a wasp. “Sure, go ahead, touch it,” he said finally. Dagur only looked more confused. “I mean, its venom will leave you writhing in pain and might kill you. In a week or so. Or you might live, with hairloss and poor breathing. Oh,” he added, as if it had just occurred to him, “and you’ll be pissing blood and shitting water for most of your life, so there’s that.”

Some of Bork’s notes could be really quite colourful in their descriptions, and it probably did not help that he had usually heard them in Gobber’s voice in his head. Whether it was the words or just the fact that Hiccup did not usually curse, the annoyance drained out of Dagur’s features, and he stared at Hiccup for a long pause before drawing his hand back towards himself.

Hiccup gently put the glowworm back on the wall, making sure to find it a small ledge until it could get a grip with its legs again. “You can’t just barge out into the world and expect it to be easy, Dagur. You need to learn about things.”

“Or,” said Dagur, “I could let people like _you_ do the learning, and you could let people like _me_ take care of the action.”

Even before, Hiccup did not want to bow and let others _take care of the action_. He had known that it would mean never being their equal, and had desperately wanted to be such. The events of the last year had only served to persuade him more that he was right, that strength and bravery were to be found in knowledge, not just in the edge of a blade.

He was about to retort when there was a sound, somewhere behind him. A low, ragged sound.

It was a dragon, and it was not Toothless. He knew every sound that Toothless made, the timbre of his throat, and that was not Toothless. It was rockier, almost, wrong in the throat. Both Hiccup and Dagur froze, and Hiccup could feel his heart thudding in his chest as he listened for anything else. Though it had not sounded like the adult Red Death, Hiccup did not know what might change in that sound as a dragon grew older, did not want to take the risk.

“Get the torch,” said Dagur, under his breath. When Hiccup hesitated, Dagur turned on him and glared. “The _torch_.”

At least a torch could be dropped or extinguished quickly. As Dagur readied his crossbow, finger coming close to the trigger, Hiccup strode back into the corridor where he had left the torch. It was like plunging back into deep water after the relative light of the glowworms, and he turned the corner into pitch blackness.

The torch was gone. Or, at least, extinguished.

It should not have gone out in the time that they had left it. The oil and Dagur’s shirt had burnt through, yes, but the wood had caught well and had been burning contentedly. Something must have put the torch out.

His first instinct was to call for Toothless, but that was not an option. Not with Dagur and his crossbow still in place. Instead, Hiccup backed along the corridor, eyes scanning the darkness for any movement, Toothless or otherwise, until the faint glow on the rocks either side of him let him know that he was back near the cave.

“The torch is out,” said Hiccup, before Dagur could chastise him. “I thought it better to get back here than to fumble for it in the darkness.”

 _Tactics_ , he almost added, but restrained himself. It was taking a lot of that today. He resolved, in the safety of his own head, that if this was a Red Death of any size then he was calling Toothless in. They could face the consequences later.

Before Dagur could say anything, there was another of the growling sounds somewhere in the darkness. This one, though, had come from markedly to the right of the previous. Pulling his shield into place, Hiccup backed up so that he was behind Dagur, eyes scanning the darkness.

The glowworms shifted and rippled, sending strange shadows over the floor. It was impossible to see how far the cavern even extended, let alone how many tunnels opened onto it. Part of Hiccup wanted to curse himself for not checking, but the glowworms had been such a find, and they would not even be in the caves at all if Hiccup had been the one leading them.

“What dragon is it?” said Dagur quietly. Hiccup looked at him in disbelief. “The sound. What dragon is it from?”

“Are – are you serious?”

“You know about dragons. You know what they sound like.”

Hiccup gritted his teeth and glared at the boy, unable for a moment to see anything but a boy despite the fact that Dagur was older than him and Chief of the Berserkers besides. “I can give you a list of dragons that it isn’t. But no, I can’t tell you what it is.”

Dagur gave him a look as if he had just done something deeply disappointing, which was pretty rich considering Dagur could apparently not even tell the difference between a harmless glowworm and a potentially-deadly Arsenic Adder. But then there was another sound somewhere in the darkness, and even Hiccup would have to admit that Dagur turned sharply and focused immediately on the unknown threat.

They could argue later. Hiccup would stand by his statement that it was not any of the dragons that he had met – with the possible exception of a Red Death, as he did not know what changes might happen to the sound of a dragon that grew so huge, and had only slippery scraps of memory of the hatchlings he had once seen. He had his shield on his left arm, his stronger side, and drew his knife but held it in his right, reversed so that the hilt was more visible than the blade.

The glowworms clumped overhead, in clusters more than a random scattering, and there was another sound. A different one; a slow scrape, like a whetstone on a blade. Hiccup felt almost cold, despite the heat of the air around them and the sweat beading on his skin. He shifted his left hand on the shield, feeling the discomfort of sweat there as well.

It was calmer in his mind, though. If it was a Red Death, there was nothing that he could do about it now. Neither running nor making extra noise would be helpful, and honestly there was not much that he could do at all until he saw what type of dragon it was.

Whatever the dragons were, he was moderately sure that there was a pack of them, and that they were trying to encircle the two humans they had found themselves facing. That didn’t necessarily mean they were predatory, of course; it could just be that those two humans had come into their home unasked and unwanted, and that the dragons were now acting defensively. With Dagur here, though, Hiccup was pretty certain that he would not have the opportunity to end a meeting with dragons peacefully.

Another long, slow scrape in the darkness. A growl followed from almost opposite it.

“We can use the glowworms as light,” he said to Dagur in an undertone. “Take a handful of them, backtrack to the exit.”

“We came looking for dragons,” Dagur hissed. Hiccup did not correct him that only one of them had come looking for dragons. “I am not going to run like some craven at the mere sound of them.”

And if Dagur got himself killed, Hiccup somehow suspected that the Berserkers would think that it was somehow a good thing. Personally, he didn’t think that a dead chief would be any better than a cowardly one, even without taking into account the absurdly variable ideas of cowardice.

“And you,” Dagur continued. “ _You_ are going to stay right here with me.”

 

 

 

 

 

He genuinely considered knocking Dagur out and forcibly removing him from the cave. It certainly looked like an inviting option rather than waiting back-to-back with Dagur for whatever it was to come closer. The dragons were communicating in low growls and huffs, and Dagur once again started to ask Hiccup if he could identify them; Hiccup silenced him with an elbow to the ribs before he could even complete the question.

There was a shift in the darkness, on the edge of the glowworms’ light, and Dagur immediately whirled to face it. Hiccup struggled to follow him round, keeping the gap closed and preventing them both from leaving their backs exposed.

“Dagur,” he hissed, “hold your ground.”

“I am holding my ground,” Dagur growled.

“I don’t mean not retreating. I mean not exposing your back.”

He guessed exactly why Dagur had done it a moment later; Dagur was not used to fighting back-to-back with anyone, let alone someone like Hiccup. For all that Hiccup had often found himself standing alone, he had been trained for years to consider that he would one day be fighting in a group, and in the last year he had been more secure in the knowledge that there were people who had his back.

Dagur made a vague grumbling sound, and Hiccup risked a glanced to see him raise his crossbow again. In darkness like this it would be useless, but Hiccup was not going to risk Dagur’s wrath pointing that out again. Instead he looked into the darkness, and waited for it to look back.

There was a shift in the darkness, and he saw the outline of a snout. Squarish, with teeth gleaming in the darkness, and the subtle gleam of long talons at the ground beneath it. But there was no gleam of eyes, and when Hiccup caught the shift of light on the long pale horn from the dragon’s head, he realised exactly what it was.

“Skullions,” he said to Dagur.

Dagur shifted, with the sound of armour plates on each other close and grating in the darkness. “What?”

“They’re Skullions.”

A pause, and then Dagur pushed Hiccup out of the way and levelled his crossbow in the direction that Hiccup had seen the first Skullion. The crossbow twanged a note as Hiccup stumbled, catching himself on his knees rather than falling over together. He looked up, but the bolt had disappeared into the darkness, and he heard it clatter against stone.

“Hel,” said Dagur.

Hiccup hissed through his teeth, but did not give his anger words, as he pushed himself back upright again. Behind him again as he turned, Dagur bent to reset his crossbow, but Hiccup saw the rush of a dragon on the edge of the light, lighter patches visible this time against the darker hide, and then it was a rush of air as much as a noise on his left side that caught his attention.

He tackled Dagur out of the way just in time for one of the Skullions to rush past, narrowly missing them both. It was the dark purple that the Book of Dragons had said, with lighter markings across its back and down its legs, and snarled with very silver teeth in the faint light above. Its claws dug into the floor with a scraping sound as it turned to face them again, the elongated central talon visible by the dim light of the glowworms.

“We need to get out of here,” said Hiccup. He had no idea how big this Skullion pack was, how hungry they were, how aggressive they were. “They only stay in caves. We go back down the path that we came.”

Dagur pushed Hiccup off with a snarl, leaving his crossbow on the ground and drawing his sword. He lunged in and slashed the Skullion across the nose, prompting it to shriek in fury and draw back into the darkness.

“Ha!” Dagur raised his sword two-handed, looking around as if searching for more.

It was about the worst thing that he could have done. Hiccup pushed himself back upright and hastily sheathed his own blade. He grabbed Dagur by the arm, and saw the sword coming round in time to block it on his shield. It rang in the air and sent shudders down Hiccup’s arm.

“Come, brother,” said Dagur, as if he had not even just struck Hiccup’s shield. “It is retreating.”

“They are pack hunters,” Hiccup snapped, not much caring for the volume of his voice. Skullions were blind and almost deaf anyway, and no matter what noise Hiccup was making, it was nothing compared to Dagur. “And they hunt largely by _smell_.”

He pointed at the blood smeared on Dagur’s sword, so close between them that Hiccup could smell it and knew that Dagur could as well. It was probably only the last straw, on top of the smell of human and leather and sweat and the food that they had eaten, but blood drove Skullions into a frenzy. Whether their own was included in that, Bork had not said, but Hiccup did not want to risk his own or Dagur’s life on that unknown.

Dagur looked at his own sword, his triumphant expression slightly dimmed, but apparently before he could achieve actual thought on the matter, another Skullion lunged in.

Hiccup barely got his shield round in time to block the brunt of its bite, and even then both he and Dagur were knocked backwards. It had lunged for Dagur’s back, talons scrabbling at the floor beneath their feet, the extended claw on its left front foot slashing dangerously at ankle height. Managing to keep his feet, Hiccup wrestled Dagur behind him again as the Skullion took another bite and locked its teeth around the shield, yanking it and trying to shake it back and forth.

The teeth were barely a foot from Hiccup’s face. He clung to the shield with both hands, its upper edge firmly in the Skullion’s grasp. From the short distance, it was easier to see the purple sheen of the skin, the small smooth scales, and the eerie empty skin where its eyes should have been. It shook its head, and he barely held on to the shield as it was thrashed about, the Skullion snarling.

He was all too aware that he could not hear what was going on behind him, and that Skullions were pack hunters. A shift in the air sent a rush of panic through him, and he gave up and dropped the shield, backing away as fast as he could and just in time for another Skullion to charge in and crash headlong into the first with a ringing, crunching sound. The first Skullion howled and lashed out at its packmate, sweeping its left foreleg around in a slice that hooked around the back of the second dragon’s knee and sliced deeply into the flesh.

Blood spilled, the second Skullion roared, and its leg collapsed underneath it. It flailed around, catching the shield in its throes and knocking it back in Hiccup’s direction. He grabbed it, grabbed Dagur, and flinched when he saw the look of awe on the man’s face. Awe was the last thing that Hiccup would feel.

“Drop the sword,” he snapped. The smell of Skullion blood filled the air, and he hoped would drown out the smell of two foolish humans. He did not want to take chances with a blood-slicked blade, though. “Dagur, _now_.”

But Dagur shook him off. He covered the distance to the fallen Skullion, still trying to rise, in three great strides, and with a leap bought his sword plunging down through the creature’s temple. It sank to the hilt through the thinner bone with a crunch and a fresh rush of blood, and Dagur whooped with victory and delight.

Gods help them. They were going to die, and Dagur and his bloodlust were going to be the cause of it.

He could leave. Hiccup knew that. He could turn and run and the Skullions would probably not pursue him, preferring to hunt Dagur in this invaded cave. But that would be as good as a death sentence, and there was nobody alive on whom Hiccup would wish that.

Something – a rush of air, he was not even sure, he was running purely on instinct – alerted him, and he shoved Dagur to the ground behind the corpse of the Skullion, covering him as best he could.

Flame blasted above them, white-hot, and Hiccup closed his eyes just too late to prevent the loss of his night vision. He felt the heat against his back, but the flame was short-lived, the Skullions incapable of anything more. Short hot bursts, the Book of Dragons had said.

Dagur looked astonished to have been knocked to the ground by Hiccup not once but twice, although it may not have helped that this time the shield had caught him soundly in the groin on the way down. It was still better than having your flesh seared from your bones. There was no time to think; Hiccup heard a snarl, sat up and turned still half-blind to catch the faint shape of movement bearing down on them, and swung backhanded with the shield and all of the strength that he could get behind it.

It slammed into the snout of the Skullion there, with a screech of teeth on metal and a pained grunt. Hiccup felt a wrenching pain in his shoulder, and stars flashed in his vision, but he managed to pull the shield back to a defensive position again. The air felt hot and thin, still smelling of rotten eggs, and he panted for breath.

Would running be enough? No, Skullions were far faster than them. They were as good as trapped if they stayed here alone. Hiccup put the fingers of his right hand to his mouth, tasting grit and blood, and whistled as loudly as he could manage. It wasn’t exactly his best effort.

“What are you doing?” said Dagur, but there was uncertainty in his voice. He had to know, as well, that they were in too deep. That there was no way out for them as they stood.

“Getting help,” said Hiccup. There was a whistling edge to the air. “Cover your ears!”

“ _What_?” said Dagur.

If he let go of the shield, he was probably going to lose it. Hiccup clung on, so prepared for the swift punch of sound of the Night Fury’s blast that it was a relief to hear it, to feel it, flashing purple through his closed eyelids as Toothless fired into the cavern. When he opened his eyes, there was still light in the room, a glowing smear of floor still half-molten and hot from Night Fury fire.

Toothless bounded into the fray; he was longer than any of the Skullions, and even mostly-furled his wings made him seem huge compared to the wingless dragons. He whipped round, tail catching one of them and tossing it aside; one fired, but Toothless curled to take the blast on his wing then responded with a roar that was almost deafening in the small space. It rattled the cave, sent glowworms falling from the ceiling, and left a dull ringing in Hiccup’s ears which made it impossible to hear anything further.

Only being able to watch might have been the worst part, but at least it meant that Toothless did not have to worry about the fire licking over him. Well, apart from protecting his tail from it, but at least he was not protecting a human as well. One of the Skullions slammed into him, sending him staggering sideways, but he turned with a roar and fired again. This time, it struck one of the Skullions head-on, so hard that it flung it back against the wall in a splatter of blood that made the glowworms wink out.

A hand wrapped around Hiccup’s upper arm, and he spun with his first coming up, still taut with battle. No, it was Dagur, of course it was only Dagur, and he was looking at Toothless with that same awe, an expression Hiccup could understand for all the wrong reasons.

“Come on!” Hiccup shouted. The sound still rang dully in his ears, until he was not sure whether or not he was even shouting at all.

“Night Fury,” Dagur said; Hiccup saw the shape of the words, even if he couldn’t hear them. Perhaps it was the black skin, or the purple fire, that made them so recognisable.

Hiccup tried to pull his arm free, failed, and gave up to drag Dagur along that way instead. When the hand finally slipped free, Hiccup increased his pace, grabbed Dagur’s fallen crossbow, and all but flung himself into Toothless’s saddle on one of the Night Fury’s whirls. To Toothless’s credit, he did not seem at all surprised as Hiccup slammed into place, though he lashed his tail triumphantly as Hiccup’s foot clicked in to the pedal and flared the tail out.

He could see gleaming teeth in the darkness, somehow all the creepier for not having the glitters of eyes among them. But with a shift of his weight and a tilt of his hips, he turned Toothless away from the mob still there.

“Come on, bud,” he said, or thought he did. He had no idea what volume it came out. “Let’s go.”

Hopefully Toothless would understand the next bit as well. Hiccup turned them to face Dagur, who was still looking dumbly at them, and sent them bounding forwards. One of the Skullions dove in towards Dagur, and Hiccup bent down to push them faster; they all collided in a tangle of dragon and human and yet more dragon, but then Toothless managed to get his legs around Dagur and his wings open enough to _beat_ , and they were flying.

Dagur was yelling. Screaming, if Hiccup wanted to be uncharitable. That managed to pierce through even the ringing in his ears and the rushing in his blood as they flew through the tunnels again, Hiccup pressed uncomfortably down to Toothless’s back with the crossbow digging into his chest and pain pulsing in his shoulder. He could hear the frustrated roaring of the Skullions behind them, and see the flashes of flame that, in the narrow space, they could barely keep ahead off. Each moment seemed to stretch out and out, until finally they took a right turn and saw light in the distance, and Toothless seemed to find another burst of energy to fly towards it.

Outside, it was still grey and foggy, and Hiccup could hardly believe how short a time it had been. But it was still _daylight_ , still enough that the first Skullion to step out into it shrieked and scratched the stony ground as it made its way back in again.

“Come on,” he said to Toothless, tiredness washing over him as he sat up. He needed to check them all over. “Let’s get back.”

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Dagur’s camp, he meant; it was closer than the one that Hiccup had barely bothered to make. They came low enough to put Dagur, long since having stopped screaming but not yet talking, on his feet. He fell over instead, but Hiccup figured that was close enough. There was enough empty room for them to set down, Toothless with his lips still slightly drawn back and his teeth extended, eyes narrowed at the sight around them. Of course, weapons and dead dragons had probably no been the best idea. Maybe they should have just found an empty stretch of beach.

“You – you–” Dagur managed to get to his knees, eyes wide, helmet having finally fallen off to lie on the ground beside him. There was blood dripping off his hand, soaking the fur bracer on his left arm, but he did not seem to notice. “It’s a _Night Fury_.”

“Yes,” said Hiccup. This was not how he had planned it, not at all, and his legs were wobbling beneath him as he climbed out of the saddle to stand beside Toothless. “It is.” He put a hand on Toothless’s shoulder, but could feel the tension vibrating through the muscle there. “His name is Toothless.”

“It has a _name_?” said Dagur, with a disbelieving curl of his lip. Toothless’s head dipped, and he growled low in his throat; Hiccup pressed a little harder with his palm.

“ _He_ has a name,” Hiccup said steadily. “And he just rescued us both from those Skullions.”

“You–” Dagur seemed to gather himself, or at least gather some sort of thought. “The Skullions. You and I were supposed to fight the Skullions together.”

“Well, you weren’t paying a lot of attention when I said that I didn’t want to fight them,” he shot back. Out here in the open, with Toothless at his side, it was a lot easier to be bold. “But right now… right now, I want you to listen, Dagur.” He stabbed a finger at the ground. “Because I have tried to ease you into it, and give you suggestions, and apparently it didn’t work. So I’m going to say it flat out.

“Dragons are not what you think. Not what we – what I – used to think. They are strong, and they are intelligent, and they are protective, and they are peaceful. Dragons do not want to fight us. They only do it because they think that they have to. Berk has peace with them, and you can too. It’s…” he couldn’t say that it was easy, and just about caught the words before they left his tongue. “It’s one step. One big, bold step.”

Hiccup all but fell to a halt, panting. Dagur looked at him, expression unreadable, then slowly got to his feet. Blood smeared on his thigh when he put his hand there to push upright, dripped on the ground as he stood and stared at Hiccup.

It took a moment for Hiccup to recognise the expression on Dagur’s face. The combination of disbelief and anger, the half-recognition. The look as if he was seeing Hiccup for the first time, seeing someone else beneath Hiccup’s skin. It was horrifying and liberating at the same time, like shucking off a shell and stepping out, raw and unprotected, into the world.

“You lied,” said Dagur, finally.

“For your sake,” Hiccup replied. “It’s a lot, Dagur, I get it. I didn’t understand everything all at once, nobody on Berk did, it was like something out of Helheim to change the way that we did. I _wanted_ to tell you, Dagur,” and so help him, Hiccup knew that he meant it; he wanted to tell everyone. “Don’t you see? You don’t yoke dragons to a plough,” he gestured to the ground at their feet, “you let them fight beside you. You ride them. You use their strength and their intelligence and give back to them in return. Fix their wounds, feed them.” Respect them. Love them. Those were not words that Dagur would appreciate, though. “Stop treating them like vermin in your food stores. Berk hasn’t started to fully understand what they can be, Dagur, I know it. Berserker Island can be with us as we do so.”

“With you?” said Dagur. There was a brittle edge to his voice, dangerous. “ _With_ you, of course. Not content with the treaty that we have, Hiccup? The alliance we _could_ have had?”

There was a slight shake to his voice, of anger, as his eyes fixed straight on Hiccup’s. There was something dark and feral in them, something that made Hiccup feel uneasy when he could look into the eyes of dragons without fear.

“But no,” Dagur continued. “First you go and marry this, this _stranger_ ,” and he managed to make it sound as filthy a word as Mildew had ever used, “and then you go and use dragons, use them like _my people_ used to use them,” he jabbed his finger towards the ground in response, though Hiccup was not sure whether the movement was a deliberate mockery or not, “after Berk slaughtered them in the first place – or did they come first? Which did come first, Hiccup?”

It was only after the silence stretched out that Hiccup realised it was not some rhetorical question, and that Dagur was not simply going to plough onwards regardless. He almost laughed. “What? Why would that matter?”

“Because now I’m wondering just how much of my visit during the spring was built on these lies,” Dagur said. “Was it the Skrill that gave you the idea, Hiccup? Did it contribute? Or did this all start before? What about that Nightmare? That wildling? How much of those days was a lie?”

“The Whispering Death attack was real,” said Hiccup. More real than Dagur could know, the corpses of hatchlings left in its wake. “Gods, Dagur, what, do you think that I was setting you up? That it was some… trick to stroke your ego?”

From the look on Dagur’s face, he realised that he was not speaking hyperbole. That was exactly what Dagur had been thinking, and Hiccup felt sickened at the thought. Not just for the ridiculous reason, but at the thought of throwing away dragon lives over anything half so inconsequential.

“It was all real,” he said. “There was no plan that night. But yes,” he took a deep breath. If the truth would out, then so be it. “We had our dragons then. And they came to our aid. And I don’t know, I don’t know if growing up hearing about Skrills planted the idea in my head that maybe there was something more. All I know is that I stopped, and I thought, and Berk is discovering a better way as a result of that.”

“And now you want to rule over the rest of us, and force us into this ‘better way’.”

This time, Hiccup could not help it, and did laugh. It came out curt, darkened with disbelief, but broke from him all the same. “Rule you? Are you serious?” Even being Chief of Berk, far off in the future, was a terrifying thought. The last thing he wanted was other islands as well. “I want to help you, to tell you about this discovery. Don’t you get it?”

“What I get is that you lied, and you treated me like a fool.” Now Dagur pointed at Hiccup, and Hiccup realised with a strange, dim surprise that Dagur’s hand was shaking. It was the bloodied one, red rivulets turning to drip across his fingers instead of down them. “What I get is that you have been lying all along, and now I cannot trust a word that falls from your – your liesmith’s lips. And what I _get_ ,” said Dagur, venom in his voice, “is that Berk has a bigger weapon than ever, and that you did not declare it to us. So tell me, Hiccup, tell me,” his voice rose to a demand, “how I am supposed to believe that you are planning anything other than using it against anyone that angers you?”

Hiccup looked down at the crossbow he still had in his right hand, then tossed it to the ground at Dagur’s feet. “He saved your life,” he said flatly. “Berk had to see the Red Death to see what dragons could do. I was hoping you would see without facing the loss that we did.”

Dagur’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat?”

“A–? Oh, for the love of Thor,” Hiccup snapped, “ _no_ , Dagur, not once have I made a damn threat. Toothless has landed among dead dragons and all of your weapons to set you down safely, and he has done nothing but help and protect us since the peace with the dragons began. They may not be able to sign a treaty, but they certainly know how to keep one.”

Dagur’s hand went to his empty scabbard, groping at thin air for a moment before he realised that his sword had been left in the caves. He strode towards the axes standing together beneath the Monstrous Nightmare skull, reaching out for the weapons, only for Toothless to growl, low and steady. Dagur froze.

“He doesn’t want weapons pointed at him,” said Hiccup. “That’s all.”

Slowly, Dagur lowered his hand again, and turned his head to look at them both coolly. “Are you sure, Hiccup? Because I’ve been hearing a lot of lies this day. And this year.”

“I don’t want this to be an argument, Dagur.” Tiredness washed over him again. “Or a fight. I wish that I could have told you earlier, but would you have listened? Would you have seen it?” Beside him Toothless had fallen quiet again, and even fully hidden his teeth. “What I want is peace. Nothing more.”

Dagur backed up to where he had been standing, and picked up his crossbow. Unloaded, it was not a danger, but Hiccup still felt Toothless stiffen as Dagur’s hands caressed the wood. “You secretly take dragons, train them, and now you say that you want peace?”

He looked up. Hiccup saw the dangerous glint in his eye just in time.

“Pity. Because you just started a war.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dagur the Deranged... seems a bit of a "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" situation to me.
> 
> Glowworms, Arsenic Adders, and Skullions are all dragon species from the books. It's never stated exactly _what_ the venom of Arsenic Adders does, so what I've gone for is symptoms similar to those of arsenic poisoning as a way that they might have gotten their name. In the books, the Skullions aren't stated to breathe fire, buuuuut I was having some fun by this point.
> 
> There are various snake species called adders, but in older forms of English it as not "an adder" but "a nadder" - the 'n' sort of migrated across over time. The same happened with "a napron" becoming "an apron". So nadder is an actual word, albeit one so obsolete that my spellcheck will have none of it!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Juuuuuust a reminder that I got jossed _hard_ by Race To The Edge, so this is not canon compliant with regards to Dagur's family situation. /tries not to spoil other people, just in case

Before Hiccup could respond, the knife from Dagur’s hip was flying for him, thrown underhand faster than a blink. He only had time to think of his shield, not even to reach for it, but with a flash of fire it was knocked aside by Toothless to spin through the air. Hiccup got his shield onto his arm again, but by then Dagur had loaded his crossbow and leapt sideways, a great bound that gave him the cover of a tree.

“I don’t want a war, Dagur!” Hiccup shouted. He could hear the edge of desperation in his own voice. “I don’t even want a fight! I’m sorry I kept this from the Berserkers, and Berk will make it up to you. Just put down the crossbow, and we’ll work out some recompense.”

All the same, he stepped back to Toothless and swung his leg over the dragon’s back, clipping it into the stirrup. The sound of metal on metal seemed too loud, and Hiccup winced. Toothless’s muscles were tense, ready to fly or to fight or to do both at just a touch from Hiccup’s knee. Not yet, though. Not unless there was no other choice.

“More lies, Hiccup!” Dagur half-sing-songed from behind the tree. Hiccup could hear him doing something with the crossbow, with a sort of clunking sound. “Send the dragon away, and maybe we’ll talk.”

“I can’t do that, Dagur.” He could not bring himself to say why, to expose Toothless’s vulnerability like that if Dagur had not seen the tailfin and worked it out. “I can have him lie down on the edge of the camp, but I can’t have him fly away.”

Dagur snorted. Hiccup bit the inside of his cheek, searching for more words, ones that would fix this, but his racing mind still could not catch any. He shook his head, sighing at himself, just as a bolt of fire shot up from behind the tree that sheltered Dagur, cutting a high tight arc through the air.

“What the…”

“How many are there?” Dagur demanded. “How many dragons have you captured, like the Skrills of old? How many do you control?”

“It’s not like the Skrills,” he said, all over again. “They choose to stand beside us, they aren’t _tools_.” Not much was known about the Skrills, not since they had been almost two centuries gone, but it was said that they had been harnessed to ships and at the command of Berserker captains. But that was before Berk had killed them all, leaving the burgeoning Berserker Empire without its greatest weapon to slowly dwindle down to one inhabited island and a few scraps of land good only for mining.

Without the Skrills, the Berserkers had still been a match for other Viking islands, perhaps, but they had been no more than a match and had certainly stood little chance of fighting the more southerly kingdoms now starting to reach northwards. They had taken loss after loss, and broken themselves against the armies of Joan of Arendelle, never to return to that sort of glory again.

Even as thoughts of Skrills came back to him, Hiccup felt his stomach clench. Perhaps Dagur already saw the dragons differently than Berk had done before. But differently than they did now, as well.

“They can be allies, Dagur.” He knew that he had to offer Dagur benefits to this, and different ones than Berk had focused on at that. “Think what the Berserkers could be like with dragons as allies. All different species of them. Ones like the Skullions are the minority; most of them won’t attack unless they feel threatened.”

Dagur whipped out from behind the tree, fired his crossbow, and stepped and turned into cover again all in one fluid movement. Hiccup dropped low to Toothless’s back as the dragon leapt to the side with a snarl.

“Come on, bud,” he said softly, “stay calm for me.”

He sat up again cautiously. The mist had narrowed down the world to just this clearing, and it would be easy to dart away into it, but Hiccup did not want some unstoppable fight to start. This was not just some malcontent from Berk; Dagur was a chief, with his own rightly feared army to call upon. He did not want to undo over fifty years of peace.

“Put down the crossbow and talk, Dagur,” he said. “I’ll have Toothless stand aside, I’ll lay down my shield, and–”

“Your shield?” Dagur whooped with laughter. “You’re as bad as my sister, with her silly ornate shield. Your weapon is your dragon, Hiccup, and I’m not coming out while it’s there.”

Right now, Toothless was more a shield than anything else. But then again, Hiccup supposed that he always had been, from the Red Death to the Speed Stingers to the Skullions. “He’s just protecting me, Dagur. He’s not going to hurt you.”

“Oh, Hiccup, when did you become such a liesmith?”

Again, Dagur darted out of cover, fired, there just long enough to see Toothless jump aside and puff a small fireball at the bolt to knock it from the air. There was a calculating look in his eye as, with another leap, he vanished behind the large tent.

Was he trying to reach Toothless’s shot limit? It was a smart way to wear a dragon down, and a well-known one. Hiccup considered saying that Toothless had no shot limit, but that would be a lie after all, and it tasted too bitter on his tongue. Toothless slowly padded around the clearing; there was enough room for them to take off, just, Toothless’s body powerful enough that he could always launch straight into the air without the room for a run-up from which some of the other dragons benefited.

“I was protecting my people, Dagur,” he said, and tried to make it sound more like an assertion than an admittance. “Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t do the same for yours.”

“And your allies? You had new weapons, and did not declare them. You voided our treaty, Hiccup!”

A treaty that had been held together mostly by the wills of Osvald and Stoick. Berk tolerated the peace with the island that had so long tormented and attacked them; Hiccup knew that many Berserkers resented it. They saw Berk as a small, annoying creature that needed to be put down, to give them access to trade with – or the raiding of – the more southerly lands like Arendelle.

“The Treaty applies to weapons,” Hiccup replied, knowing that his words were true but finding himself hoping desperately that he had not done as Dagur was accusing. “Not to kitchen knives, not to wood-axes, not to ordinary things that can be used as weapons in times of need. That’s what dragons are on Berk. Ordinary things, not weapons.”

 _Things_ still felt wrong, but it was the best that he could do. _People_ was pushing it too far, at least outside the privacy of his own thoughts. Even Berk might have trouble with that word.

“You kept dragons a secret,” said Dagur, and Hiccup could hear the beginnings of a build to crescendo already. “You violated and voided our treaty, and you _dare_ to say that it was for my benefit. I think – your time – is up!”

Dagur burst from the _front_ of his tent, this time with a significantly larger crossbow that had a significantly more wicked-looking bolt. Without thinking, Hiccup urged Toothless into the air, and they bounded upwards in a great sweep of wings. But Dagur was already firing, smoothly following their movements, and though with a throw of his body Hiccup rolled them sideways through the air, Toothless cried out as the arrow passed and Hiccup felt his own stab of terror.

But then they became stable again, hovering above the camp, casting a faint shadow down over Dagur and his array of weapons and death.

“I wanted to be your ally,” Hiccup shouted, and wished that he could make it clear how true it was. Even Dagur, Dagur of all people, he would have allied with. The thought of peace with more and more people put a yearning in his chest. “And I wanted the dragons to be your allies too. I saved your life – _Toothless_ saved your life, from those Skullions!” He was shouting still, and his heart and his chest ached together. “He could have left us there, but he saved us both. I wanted to help you see that, instead of forcing it upon you, but at every step you thought instead of death.”

“And I wanted things as well, Hiccup! I would have cleared your path to chieftain, that we might face this petty, vulnerable archipelago, and share in their conquest. Like I cleared my own path!”

“I don’t want conquest!”

Hiccup drew in his breath to continue, when there was a crunching noise towards the shore. His head whipped round as he tried to place it, fumbling before the noise of wood on stony beaches came to him, and beneath him Dagur cackled with laughter again.

“Time’s up, Hiccup! I promised my men a signal if anything large enough was here – that Red Death, you know, your stories do travel, and I _had_ heard of it! But I think a Night Fury will do just as well, don’t you?”

Hiccup’s eyes narrowed. He could hear the shouts of men now, dulled by the fog, and Dagur already had another bolt in his crossbow and was readying to raise it.

For once, perhaps, Dagur was right. His time was up.

He turned Toothless’s nose to the tent not far behind Dagur, with its weaponry and skins and supplies, and the stiffening of his body and the nudge of his knee probably meant more than the shout itself.

“Fire!”

In a split second, Toothless breathed in, the high-pitched sound of preparing to fire, then with a jolt that put all of his body behind the blast he fired. The purple-white, brilliant light shattered into the ground, obliterating the tent and sending smouldering shards and clods of earth alike showering around. Dagur hit the ground hard, though whether from the shockwaves or from throwing himself aside it was impossible to say, and looked up with fury in his eyes.

“He knows mercy,” Hiccup shouted, one last time with his throat dry and raw. “And he is giving you this second chance as well. I give you more time to choose peace, Dagur. As long as you want it.”

Then, with a touch to Toothless’s tail, they plunged upwards into the fog, and the ground was lost beneath them.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup took a circuitous route back to his camp, his anger slowly fading to something that might have been despair. He knew that Dagur would not have listened in the spring. He had tried to introduce him to the idea of dragons as something else, just that day, and he had been derisive. How could he have made Dagur understand?

How could he have prevented this?

Osvald had held peace for fifty years, but Dagur had no care to do so. His talk of Skrills and of ‘using’ chiefhood made Hiccup worried about what he might have planned. Or what he might plan now. The Berserkers were a dangerous enough ally; Hiccup did not want to think about them as a foe.

He was about to curse Ashblade for not returning to Berserker Island when her presence was sorely needed, as a voice of sanity of nothing else. But then Dagur’s words came back to him again, and he felt abruptly sick.

_I would have cleared your path to chieftain… Like I cleared my own._

To the Berserkers, the role of chieftain could still be passed on in two ways – by death, or by loss and humiliation in combat. To be precise, either event left the role of chieftain _open_ , for someone to claim. Usually, both respect and the role of chieftain passed to whoever had done the killing or humiliating, although it was not unheard of for another man to immediately kill the new ‘chief’ in turn, and for bloody power struggles to emerge.

Something told him that was not what had happened here.

Hiccup shivered violently, and clutched at Toothless’s saddle, not seeing the world around him as he thought of Dagur’s expression, the smile at the blood on his sword, the promise to _clear Hiccup’s path_.

“Let’s go home,” he said to Toothless, closing his eyes against the flashes of nausea rushing through him. His voice sounded weak even to him. Done with winding and wending, he turned Toothless back to the southern side of the great volcano, where they had set up camp in a cave partway up the cliffside. It was broad enough at the mouth for Toothless to spread his wings, but deep enough to keep the rain out, and Hiccup had intended to use it to keep them away from anything that might find them on the ground. Even if he had expected it to be more about keeping Gronckles out of his food bag than anything else.

They landed in the mouth of the cave, Toothless grunting, and Hiccup half-slid, half-stumbled out of the saddle. He leant against the wall, dropping his shield to the ground and putting his right hand to his face, feeling the weight of the day pressing down between his shoulderblades. His right shoulder throbbed, and his hands were grazed and stinging, but he suspected that most of what felt like pain was only tiredness behind a mask.

Toothless, though, had fought. Peeling himself upright, Hiccup turned to see Toothless standing patiently in the mouth of the cave, head cocked and flaps back as he looked in Hiccup’s direction.

“I’m sorry, Toothless. I should have checked you over immediately.” In the darkness, the Skullions had seemed to be barely more than teeth and claws, with only enough flesh to string their weapons together. “Let me have a look.”

He started from the head, running his fingers gently over the lines of bones to make sure that everything was all right. Head and jaw clear, flaps unharmed, running down the neck with Toothless tilting his head to make Hiccup’s access easier. Hiccup checked each forelimb thoroughly, finding a shallow slash on the left side that would need cleaning but not stitching, and a deeper wound to Toothless’s side that might need more care. He ran his hands around it gently, and his shoulders sagged with guilt.

“Sorry, bud. You took this for me.”

And because of Dagur, to be more exact; Hiccup spared a glare out of the cave in the direction that he guessed the Berserkers would be. Between the fog and the elevation, he could not hear them, but he would have to wait until dark to feel safe flying back to Berk. Until then, he supposed that he could get a start on Toothless’s injuries, at least.

He stripped off the saddle and tail, and peeled off his vest to drop on the same heap. Toothless needed no encouragement to lie down on his right side, keeping both of his wounds off the ground, although he grumbled a little when Hiccup washed them both out with some of their water. The shallower wound was barely bleeding, and he simply kept an eye on it, but the deeper wound looked worse and was not scabbing up. Hiccup folded up a spare shirt that he had bought, using it as a dressing and tying it in place with a strip cut from his blanket. Toothless huffed again when Hiccup squirmed a hand underneath to make sure that it was not too tight, but it seemed to be more frustration than anything else.

After that, there was not much that he could do. He did not feel like eating, although Toothless happily gulped down the dried fish that he was offered, and instead sat sipping water and staring into the grey-blue sky outside.

Damn Dagur. Damn Dagur and his bloodthirst and his refusal to accept that there might be things in the world that he did not already know about. Part of Hiccup did feel guilty about the lies, but it was hard when Dagur had lashed out so hard in return. Declared war, whatever that would mean for Berk. He would have to tell his father about this.

His father, as well. Dagur had so casually offered to _clear the way_ for Hiccup to become chief, and it made him feel sick to think that Dagur would have killed Stoick for him. His hands clenched until his nails felt sharp against his palm, and part of him wanted to lie down and curl against Toothless’s side. As if this would all go away if he retreated from it.

But it would not. And now all that he could do was wait until it was dark enough for them to leave.

 

 

 

 

 

Once it was dark enough, Hiccup checked Toothless’s injuries once more by the dim, dissipated moonlight, strapped up the things that he had bought with him which sat like a clumsily large pack on his back, and slipped back into the saddle.

It should have been liberating, being in the air again, rising above the fog to where the sky was cool and clear and the half moon made everything stand in sharp detail. But Hiccup’s heart was still heavy in his chest, and he could not enjoy the sight of the fog turned to silver beneath him, or the stars like a thousand thousand dragon fires against the sky. He kept his hands firmly on Toothless’s back, pressing them home without asking for any great bursts of speed, and they ate up the distance as the fog faded away again to give way to black open water with pinpricks of white foam here and there.

The faint orange lights of Berk’s fires were enough to raise a smile, even when they were only on the horizon. Despite the temptation, Hiccup did not push Toothless, or ask for a final sprint, all too aware of the cut on the dragon’s side and what must have been an exhausting fight against the Skullions. All the same, Toothless’s head seemed to perk up at the sight of home, and his flaps twitched with more than just the wind.

It was not quite a surprise to see the shape of a dragon above the island, nor for it to be Stormfly with Astrid on her back. Hiccup sat up straighter as Astrid made a beeline for them, Stormfly’s pale belly visible against the darkness and Astrid’s hair a bright flutter.

She cut a tight circle to draw alongside him, bewilderment on her face. “ _Hiccup_? What are you doing back?”

“Things didn’t go to plan.” He was not sure that he could admit it all, not yet, not to anyone but his father. He saw the way that Astrid looked over his expression, though, and she nodded, lips pressed tightly together. It was probably a good thing that she could not see the dark fabric of the makeshift dressings on Toothless’s injuries. He had no doubt that there would be choice words when she did find out. “I need to talk to my father.”

Astrid nodded. “Want an escort?”

“Nah, I’m good. Won’t interrupt your patrol,” he tried a smile for her, and hoped it did not look too terrible in the dark. Astrid looked at him dubiously, but tilted Stormfly away into the night again, and Hiccup let his smile faded as he fixed his eyes on the light that he knew as home.

He did not have the strength for questions from all and sundry. Landing almost silently on the roof, Hiccup slid out of the saddle, careful with his feet, and heaved open the window. Toothless was wriggling through almost before it was wide enough, and Hiccup hoped that was to do with being glad to be home as well. He pushed it open wider to make sure that it would not scrape on Toothless’s injuries, then slid through himself and tried to close the window quietly behind him.

Naturally, that did not happen. His right arm gave out on him, and the window slammed shut, narrowly missing hitting him in the head along the way.

“Thor!” he snapped.

“Hiccup?” Anna’s voice drifted up from downstairs, where he could see the soft glow of the fire. Hiccup pulled off his pack and dropped it on his bed as the screech of chairs and immediate scatter of footsteps preceded both Anna and Elsa appearing on the stairwell. “What are you doing back?”

“Are you all right?” said Elsa. She pressed past her sister and hurried the rest of the way into the room, catching Hiccup by the hands. Even the slight jolt made his shoulder ache, and he winced. “You are hurt.”

“It’s just my shoulder. Nothing that won’t heal,” he said quickly. “Where’s my father? I need to speak to him.”

“Did something happen?” said Anna. Her Terror took the opportunity to stick its head out of her top and survey the scene, eyes sleepily half-closed. The sight of another dragon was just another reminder of what he was fighting for, and Hiccup’s shoulders slumped.

Elsa had clearly seen the answer to the question already. “He is out. I will fetch him.”

Giving his hands one last squeeze, she touched Toothless’s head lightly on the way back to the stairwell, and took the stairs in quick, light steps. Hiccup cupped his left hand beside his mouth to call after her.

“Gobber as well, please!”

Stoick for the matter with Dagur, but Gobber for Toothless. There was no reply before the door opened and closed again, but he trusted her to have heard. Hiccup dropped his vest on the bed as well, pushed up his sleeves, and set about undoing Toothless’s tail and saddle. Even without light, it was not hard; he could have done this with his eyes shut long ago.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Anna. She stepped cautiously into the room, with one last glance over her shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Not particularly. “I need to, but with my father,” said Hiccup. Even with fingers feeling stiff and clumsy, he undid each buckle in turn. “Today… did not go to plan.” He sighed. “To say the least.”

Finally, the saddle was free, and he went to loosen the bandages as well before thinking better of it.

“Come on, bud.” Hiccup straightened up, holding his right arm across his chest at the most comfortable angle he could. “Let’s get you downstairs and into the light.”

He waved for Anna to go first, and nodded his head for Toothless to follow her, taking up the rear himself. Anna trotted down the steps and back into the front room, which was a little over-warm in the autumn air, and felt stuffy after summer. But it would get stuffier still come winter, and they would appreciate all the heat they could get then.

“I hope your day went better than mine,” he said. There was a large clear area just to the right of the fire, which could be used for chairs or barrels but was most often left empty in case Toothless wanted to be down on their level rather than up in the rafters. Hiccup gestured for Toothless to head over there, and the dragon seemed more than happy to comply. “Did you all head to the academy?”

He glanced over the room; there were slates at the table, with odd words written on them. On finding out that Elsa had all but forgotten everything that she read as a child, Anna had been overjoyed to help her rediscover the words that had escaped her. Frustratingly, Elsa seemed to struggle with the different set of runes used by the Vikings rather than by Arendelle, not to mention the rather slapdash spelling of Northur. Still, he wondered how much was a lingering lack of belief in herself, and he hoped that it might improve, that recovering words could be easier than learning them for the first time.

“Um, yeah,” said Anna. As Hiccup pulled over a stool to sit next to Toothless, she dragged one over as well. Stoick was not going to be impressed with the marks on the floor. “Fishlegs took some more measurements of the babies, I mean, the tinytooths,” she said. “And then Elsa made an ice rink for us to all slide around on, including the tinytooths and _mothers and fathers_!” she slipped into Arendellen at the sight of the injury on Toothless’s side, as Hiccup unwrapped the bandage.

All right, so it probably did look worse now that there was dried blood crusted all around it. Hiccup put his hand on the skin beside the wound; it felt warm, but no more so than he would expect after a flight.

“Today is a long story,” said Hiccup, with a glance at Anna. She looked horrified. Of course, he realised faintly, it would have been the first time that she had seen one of the dragons injured. “He’ll be all right. It’s not as much to a dragon. Just…” he swallowed. “Just keep going. What did you do today?”

“ _We_ , um,” she dragged herself back into Northur, “we watched the dragons try to skate for a while,” she said, voice wobbly. “Then Astrid bought lunch and, well,” Anna shrugged as she warmed to her story, “I’m not sure what was in those sandwiches but they were interesting. Definitely interesting. Oh! And I learnt some new words.”

“That’s good,” he said, with another momentary look up and an encouraging nod. There had been something a little fascinating about the difference between the gaps in Elsa’s and Anna’s vocabulary. While Anna looked blankly at discussions of the weather, Elsa would start to frown when they got deeper into talk of Arendellen politics. He checked on the shallower wound as well, and grimaced when he saw the slight seeping of fresh blood. “What were the words?”

“Fart,” said Anna with conviction. Hiccup’s hands fell still. “Bowels. Um – oh! Orgasm. And the verb ‘to masturbate’. And arsecrack.”

Hiccup closed his eyes. It was really hard to come up with a coherent response to that. “And… how did you come across those words?”

Any of them would have been enough to surprise him, but all of them back to back brought him up completely short. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that his friends were teaching such words to the Queen of Arendelle, of all people.

“There was a debate going on,” said Anna. “About what the most satisfying feeling is. Fishlegs started it, by saying it was the feeling of accomplishment when you finish something, but then Tuffnut said it was a – what were his exact words?” she frowned to herself.

Hiccup put a hand over his face. “Oh, gods.”

“Right, ‘a thundering, bowel-clearing fart of godly proportions’,” said Anna, and there was a light in her eye as she smiled which suggested that she knew exactly how badly Hiccup wanted to flee this conversation. “And then Ruffnut said that no, it was–”

“I can guess what Ruffnut said and which of your new words came from her,” he said quickly, pointing at her.

Anna grinned. “Then Snotlout said that it was wiping sweat out of your arsecrack after a long day.” Hiccup put his head completely in his hands with a groan. “But then Astrid said that the most satisfying feeling in the world was punching someone who was having an annoying conversation in your presence, and the topic changed pretty quickly after that. Can’t think why.”

“You know what the worst part is?” said Hiccup, looking up again. “I would come closest to agreeing with Snotlout. Because it is the feeling of taking off your prosthetic _leg_ and wiping the sweat out of it after a long day.” He left his elbows on his knees, hands dangling, and shook his head. “Sounds like you guys had quite a day.”

“Looks like you did,” replied Anna, her voice becoming more serious again.

Unable to argue, Hiccup reached up to rub his shoulder. He’d injured himself in enough foolish ways over the years, and was pretty sure that it would pass in a few days. At least it was his right side, as well.

The door opened, and Hiccup looked round to see Gobber entering, and to smell the forge still on him. “You didn’t leave the fire–” he began. Gobber cut him off with an unimpressed look.

“Aye, I’m going to let the forge burn down because you got back early.” His expression did not improve when Hiccup rolled his eyes. “Dogsbreath is there. We were slowing down for the night in any case. Elsa came rushing in to ask if I’d seen your father, then said you wanted me as well. What’s up?”

Given the circumstances, Hiccup realised he should be acting more grateful. He sat up straighter and let his expression soften. “I’ll tell the full story when Dad gets back. But the short version is that Toothless took on some Skullions. And apparently even a Night Fury can’t do that and come out unscathed.”

“Skullions?” Gobber’s annoyance evaporated in an instant as well, and he hurried closer. Anna shuffled her stool back out of the way to make room for Gobber to kneel beside Toothless and, with barely a glance at the shallower cut, start inspecting the deeper. He sucked in air between his teeth. “Hope he did worse to them.”

Glowworms darkening themselves on stone. “Yes,” said Hiccup quietly. “He definitely did.”

“Mm.” Carefully, Gobber put his thumb and finger either side of the wound and gently parted the edges of it. Toothless rumbled, but there was no threat in it, and Hiccup put a hand on his flank. “That’ll need stitches. Hasn’t gone through the muscle wall, though, that’s a good thing. Much worse if it goes that deep. Quite the muscle on him,” he said, patting Toothless’s side. “I’ll need gut for that. It’s only Gothi keeps that on hand, I’ll have to ask one of your friends to fly on up to her.”

“We should ask Elsa first,” said Hiccup. It was as if his brain had started working again for the first time since he had landed. “She might be willing to freeze it closed. But I don’t know if her magic would hold for the length of time we need.”

Gobber nodded, but still straightened up, grunting and grimacing. “We’ll start with some calendula on that, though. Then I’ll give a holler for one of the others.”

“I’ll call for someone,” said Hiccup, getting to his feet. Anna went to stand up as well, opening her mouth and probably about to offer, but Hiccup waved her back. Even if she didn’t know Dagur, she knew politics. And there wasn’t exactly much of a precedent for the day Hiccup had just had.

Stepping out and making sure the door swung gently closed behind him, he pulled the whistle from his belt and blew one of the sequences of notes that he had played with over the summer. He waited briefly, scanning the sky, then repeated the same pattern again. It was not long at all before he heard the burr of wings behind him, accompanied by some confused exclamations, and he turned to see Meatlug veer around the edge of the house at speed. Hiccup ducked, and Meatlug shot past his head, wheeled around on the spot – almost pitching Fishlegs off as she did so – and looked at him hopefully.

“Hiccup!” said Fishlegs, clinging on.

“Sorry. Didn’t realise she’d be quite that…” he waved in Meatlug’s general direction. “Intent.”

“No. I mean – you’re back!”

“Long story. Seriously. I’ll give you the condensed version tomorrow.” Once he had figured out what the condensed version was even going to be, of course. “I need you to head up to Gothi and get some gut, for stitches. Tell her Gobber needs it. Please?”

Fishlegs still didn’t look certain, but just maybe Hiccup had enough practice in giving orders nowadays because he nodded hastily and straightened up in his saddle. “Of course. I’ll bring it right down.”

“Thank you,” said Hiccup, hoping that he could express even half of his gratitude in his voice. “It’s been… a really long day.”

The sound of his father’s jogging steps, made audible as much by his scalemail as anything else, made Hiccup look round. Without another word, Fishlegs took off, Meatlug’s wings whirring again. Hiccup felt his shoulders slump as he saw his father again, Elsa running to keep up. He stepped straight up into his father’s path, and threw himself into a hug.

It seemed to catch even Stoick by surprise, as he stumbled to a halt and hesitated before wrapping his arms around Hiccup in return. Hiccup closed his eyes, and listened to his father’s rough breaths, felt the warmth of him through the scalemail and the cloak, and squeezed as tightly as he could. It was enough to make Stoick grunt.

“Elsa said you needed me back,” said Stoick.

Reluctantly, Hiccup released him, and took a step back. He went to push his hair back with his right hand, winced, and put it across his chest again instead. “Dragon Island didn’t go to plan,” he said. There was no sugar-coating it. “Dagur was there. He knows, Dad.” Stoick’s eyes went wide as Hiccup felt one involuntary shiver runs through him. “He knows about the dragons, he knows that I was lying in the spring. And I think that he’s ready to fight Berk over it.”


	5. Chapter 5

It took a surprisingly long time to tell the entire story. The fire slowly burned down, the air cooled around them, and Elsa sat hip-to-hip with Hiccup on the bench as he told his father everything that had happened. Partway through the explanation, Fishlegs arrived with the gut for stitches, and Gobber retrieved it and thanked him quietly. It was strange how some things had blurred, so that Hiccup could barely remember what he had said to Dagur about dragons and what they meant, but every second of the fight with the Skullions had seared itself into his memory.

It probably said a lot about how seriously Stoick took the conversation that he had Hiccup take off his shirt to have his shoulder checked without even breaking the conversation. Stoick knelt beside him and gently tested Hiccup’s injury, fingers probing the skin as he had Hiccup roll his shoulder and lift his arm as high as it would go. It was only muscle, though, he said softly, and would heal. Warmth and rest would be the best for it.

“Possibly the stupidest thing,” said Hiccup, as he wrestled his shirt back on and wished that he had something that he could wrap around himself instead, “is that I didn’t even manage to tell Dagur I wasn’t married. He was still angry about that as well,” he added, more to Elsa. Her smile was distinctly sad. “It’s probably got to do with telling outsiders something that I wouldn’t tell the Beserkers. Honestly, I suspect the whole thing about going hunting was going to be an attempt to get him to sleep with me. Again.”

Anna dropped the mug that she was still holding; luckily it was empty, as she made an attempt to grab it but completely missed and let it clatter to the floor. The Terros squeaked and clutched at her shoulder. Eyes huge, she stared at Hiccup. “What do you mean, _again_?”

It did take him a moment, then Hiccup realised why not only Anna but indeed his father and Gobber were looking at him with horror. “No,” he said quickly. “No! I mean, he tried _again_ to get me to sleep with him.” He sighed. “Although, I appreciate, I probably could have phrased that better.”

“To say the least,” said Gobber. Stoick looked unable to quite form words.

When the tiredness abated, Hiccup was probably going to regret having said that. But right now, too much had happened. “But as I said, I think it’s more that he thinks I’ve married an _outsider_. A non-Viking. And that I’d tell them about dragons, but not him.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Oh, this is so messed up… when he _does_ find out, he’s probably just going to be angrier. Because it’s another lie.”

“Hiccup,” Stoick said. His voice was steady, and Hiccup wished that it were something tangible which he could hold onto. “Settle, now.”

It was not until Hiccup sighed, the breath feeling like lead on the air, that Stoick nodded.

“I do not want you thinking that was has happened was your fault. Even if our actions were mistaken,” he added, holding up a hand as Hiccup went to speak, “it is not as if you alone were behind them. And I am supposed to have a lot more experience with the Berserkers than you.”

His look became more pointed; Hiccup held his tongue.

“You did the right thing in making it clear to Dagur that you were still open to peace. The sailing season will be closing soon, and they will certainly be no chance of Dagur trying to bring boats here once that happens. The spring seas might be unpredictable, but the winter ones are not. We will be on our guard for a moon, perhaps, no more, and after that both we and they will have to wait for spring.”

“And what then?” said Hiccup, with a vague wave. “We can’t just sit and wait for him to try to fight us.”

“No,” Stoick allowed. “But then, we will have at least three choices. We can wait for them to choose, we can go to them to press harder for peace, or we can go to them and press for war.”

“I don’t want war.”

“Nobody in their right mind wants war, Hiccup. It’s a case of deciding whether it’s better than the alternative.”

Well, the right mind part ruled out Dagur, for a start. Hiccup snorted.

“There is another option,” said Stoick, with a glance across to Gobber. Hiccup pulled himself upright, leaning in to his father and doing his best to look more awake than he really felt. “With the Berserkers, at least. If there’s someone who can challenge Dagur, and beat him, then they can claim leadership of the Berserkers. At best, it could resolve things with no blood at all.”

It sounded like an amazing option right then. “You can do that?” breathed Hiccup.

Stoick raised a hand. “Not me, Hiccup, and not you either. Whoever defeats him will become the new Berserker Chief, and may have to face others who will challenge them. There may have been some of Osvald’s inner circle who would still be skilled enough, but many of them are likely too old to face Dagur now. If he hasn’t removed them already to consolidate his power.”

“Now there’s a euphemism,” Hiccup muttered.

The fact that his father did not correct him was more than telling enough. “Besides which, it would need to be someone that the Berserkers would follow. Strong enough to hold them until things are stable. Otherwise, there could be chaos.”

“Ashblade.”

“Aye.”

Hiccup ran his left hand over his face, already aware of the curious look he was getting from Anna. With a deep breath, he turned and looked past Elsa, catching Anna’s eye. “Dagur’s older sister. All Berserkers are expecting to spend a year viking – that is, sailing, fighting, learning life on board ship. Some take longer. She took to sea… it must be nearly two years ago now.”

“That was not what she said she was planning, though,” said Stoick. The words caught Hiccup by surprise, and he fell quiet. “I spoke to her the last time that they were here, the spring two years ago – we alternate with the Berserkers,” he added, to Anna, “where the treaty is signed. Not like with Arendelle. Ashblade had a plan, though: before the close of the season in autumn, she was going to head south, where she could make the most of the winter, before coming back north in the spring. She only intended to spend a year at sea.”

“She knew what Dagur would do.”

“She _suspected_ what he _might_ do,” Stoick said, the words carefully placed. Hiccup nodded, accepting. Dagur might have been broadly predictable, but it was never possible to guess exactly what anyone might do, let alone someone as unpredictable as the new Berserker Chief. “But yes, it was because of him. She should have been back by now.”

Gobber shifted in his chair. “You don’t think…” he said slowly. A look passed between him and Stoick, and Stoick’s jaw shifted, lips pressing tightly together. Hardly visible behind the beard, but Hiccup was used to that.

“Think what?” said Hiccup. Anna and Elsa would have even less chance of following the conversation if things were not said aloud.

Stoick’s hand clenched into a fist, slowly but hard enough for his knuckles to pale. “You said that Dagur spoke of ‘clearing his path’ to the place of chief.” He waited just long enough for Hiccup to nod. “Doubtless that meant fighting his father. But Ashblade would not have let him do this, and I cannot but imagine that Dagur would know that as well.”

The implications were more than clear. Hiccup felt another surge of nausea, and he saw Anna grab for Elsa’s hand beside him. “If he tried to go after her,” he said, well aware that he too had slipped into euphemisms, “he would have had a fight to wake the gods. I don’t think we should write her off altogether. And I don’t think that she would have stayed in the south. If we can find her–”

Stoick began to shake his head grimly.

“We have the whole winter!” said Hiccup. He gestured to Toothless. “And we have dragons. If she’s in the archipelago, or within a moon’s sailing, we’re probably the only ones who do have a chance of finding her!”

“They can cover the distance a lot more quickly, Stoick,” said Gobber. “If nothing else, they can see if she’s been sighted this year.”

“I won’t be putting you or your friends in danger,” Stoick said, without taking his eyes off Hiccup. “Flying to any inhabited island would do that; the Berserkers have shown that much.”

“But if we can find her–” Hiccup pressed.

Stoick paused, and sighed, but finally he nodded. “It might be our best chance for a peaceful ending of this. Yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was late by the time that Hiccup limped to bed, the time eaten up by their talking and then by the time it had taken for Gobber to clean out Toothless’s wound with boiled saltwater and stitch it up. Elsa agreed to seal it over with a layer of ice, but admitted that she did not know how long the ice would last. Hiccup’s leg was sore, his shoulder throbbing, and sitting down on his bed made him feel so heavy he might break through the floor and crash into the room below.

Toothless rumbled, pausing at his slate as if considering before padding on and breathing his fire down onto it. The smell of hot rocks filled the room, and Hiccup smiled as Toothless settled down onto the smouldering surface and wrapped his tail around himself.

“You get comfortable, bud,” he said.

He put his foot on his bedside table and dragged the blankets out from beneath his own backside, too lazy to stand up again properly. It was almost like his brain was turning to rust, creaking and cracking as it ticked on down. Hopefully tomorrow things would seem clearer, even if they weren’t any less daunting. Everything was fuzzy around the edges at the moment.

He was just shuffling under the blankets, eyes already lolling closed, when Elsa cleared her throat at the doorway to his room. He hadn’t even heard her come up the stairs. Pushing himself back to a seated position, Hiccup smiled faintly.

“Hey. Everything all right?”

“I came to check you were all right,” said Elsa. She was wearing a nightshirt that had become a night _dress_ on her, even after she had taken it in and up, and her hair was in a simple braid over one shoulder. For a moment, Hiccup could not meet her eyes, and fiddled with the edge of the blanket. Elsa crossed to sit beside him on the bed, expression soft. “A lot happened.”

“Yeah.” Hiccup sighed. “It’s just… it’s almost funny, really,” he said, without the slightest humour. “Part of the reason I went to Dragon Island was to be done with my nightmares of the Red Death. And instead…” he waved a hand, or tried to; it thudded back down to the blanket. “Instead I get a whole new set of nightmares.”

Elsa’s hand came to rest on his sore shoulder; he grunted, but all the same the cool touch was nice, and he felt the muscles of his shoulder relax.

“You will handle it,” said Elsa. “You and your father, you spoke well. There was no panic.”

“Not that I said aloud, at least,” he said dryly.

“Sometimes, that is enough.”

He let his head loll to the side, towards her cool hand against his shoulder. “I am so tired,” he admitted, trying to shake his head but barely managing more than a twitch. He slumped forwards, elbows on his knees, but let his eyes closed only for a second before opening them again. Beside him, he saw Elsa tilt her head, looking at him more closely.

“But you do not want to sleep,” she said finally.

“I don’t want to _dream_.”

Elsa’s hand shifted from his shoulder, and brushed over his forehead instead. That felt even nicer, if anything. Hiccup closed his eyes for a while longer, and heard Elsa shift.

“You should sleep,” she said quietly. “Nightmares… are only nightmares. They are not real.”

Dully, he remembered the nights that they had sat before the fire, pushing their respective nightmares into the shadows. But they seemed a long way off, before the summer, before everything that had happened. Hiccup lay down, as much falling onto his back as anything else, without even opening his eyes. Every breath felt as if he was sinking deeper into his blankets. It had been a long time since he had felt this tired.

The blankets were pulled up over him, and he realised it must be Elsa still, but his body was no longer paying much attention to his mind and he could not even raise his hands. There was a long pause, her hand resting on the centre of his chest, then with a soft sigh Elsa shifted again. He felt her climb onto the bed beside him, curling around him so that her forehead was against the side of his head, her arm across his upper chest.

“Elsa?” he muttered.

Her breath brushed his ear. “Sleep. I am here.”

“My Dad will lose his mind.”

“I sleep beside Anna,” she said. “She is my sister. You are my brother. I would take the nightmares for you, if I could.”

He wanted to say that he knew full well how many nightmares of her own she had. All that made it to his lips was a vague, grateful mumble, and then sleep finally overwhelmed him.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup awoke to indistinct noise downstairs and a sense of cold between his shoulderblades. It took a moment for his brain to catch up enough to realise that he was lying on his side, with Elsa pressed against his back, and it was in fact her forehead that he could feel as cold through his nightshirt. Her arm was around him, and when he craned to look over his shoulder he could see that she was lying on top of all of the blankets, with a number of layers between them.

He didn’t remember his dreams.

Even the small shift must have woken her; her eyes snapped open, focusing on him immediately, and he felt a moment of tension run through her. To be fair, he couldn’t help feeling that the whole situation was a bit awkward. It had seemed like a good idea last night, or at least he had been too tired to think of reasons not to let her sleep next to him, but with morning he was all too aware of the word _inappropriate_ hanging in the air between them.

“Did you sleep all right?” said Elsa, before he could find words. “Did you dream?”

“Yes. I mean, I don’t think so.” He blinked, eyes still gummy with sleep, as he rolled back onto his other side so he could face her. “I’m good.”

Elsa’s arm snaked around his shoulders again, and pulled him into a hug. There was something desperate about it; he was awake enough to feel that now, the way that her forearm tensed and her hand shook slightly. Hiccup did his best to hug her back with the arm that was not supporting his weight.

“What is it?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. “You could have been hurt. And I was not there to help you.”

“You don’t have to help me,” he replied, immediately. Thoughts were starting to tumble into his head again, with the wakefulness of day, that Dagur could well have responded worse with Elsa there, that revealing her magic might have been even worse than revealing the dragons, but he kept those thoughts to himself. “I’m back. I’m here.”

Finally, she drew back a little, though her eyes remained downcast. “You always come back. I am more lucky than I deserve.”

“No,” said Hiccup firmly. “You deserve everything.” After only a moment’s uncertainty about whether it was a good idea, he leant in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Elsa’s eyes widened, and Hiccup did his best to give a reassuring smile that did not give any of the uncertainty about whether he had done the right thing or not. “And I’m fine. Now go on.” He patted her shoulder. “You should probably get back before Anna wakes up and wonders where you were. Or my father actually shows that humans can breathe fire as well as dragons.”

Her eyes saying thanks all over again, Elsa nodded, then swung her legs off the bed. She walked over to Toothless first though, and he raised her head as she crouched down. Rumbling, he nuzzled into her hand, and Elsa laughed softly, bending low enough to touch her forehead to Toothless’s just for a moment. Straightening up, she brushed her fingers over the ice-covered wound again; it seemed that it had lasted the night, at least.

With one more smile and nod to Hiccup, she made her way down the stairs with light steps. Hiccup ran a hand through his hair, felt it stick out in all directions – time for a thorough wash of it, and possibly a haircut as well by now – and sighed.

“You ready for today, bud?”

Toothless looked round and chirped. Then he made a sort of belching, rumbling sound, and his expression settled to something that, on a human, would be unimpressed.

It was enough to make Hiccup smile. “Yeah, me too. Come on, let’s check you out by daylight.”

 

 

 

 

 

Toothless’s injury was not hot to the touch, and did not seem infected, for which Hiccup was grateful beyond words. He gathered all of the other dragon riders at the academy, where they seemed wary at the sight of Stoick, but did most of the talking himself as he outlined that Dagur now knew about the dragons, there was a risk of attack from the Berserkers, and they were to keep an eye out whenever they were sailing. The story to be told at the town meeting – everyone by now probably knew that Hiccup had returned earlier than planned – was to be that Dagur and Hiccup had met, that Dagur had seemed hostile, and that Berk was to be on its guard because of that.

“You know the real story,” said Hiccup, looking at all of them as sternly as he could. “For your safety, if we’re going to be out flying still. But it needs to stay among _us_. Discussion should take place only in the academy or at my house, and only when you are absolutely sure no-one could overhear you.”

Tuffnut perked up. “On pain of death?”

“On pain of–?!” Hiccup felt a stab of frustration at Tuffnut’s flippant words and gleeful expression. “No, Tuff, on pain of potentially starting a war.”

If they could make it to the close of the sailing season, then they would have several moons where it would be difficult or impossible for the Berserkers to sail to Berk. But there were hotheads on Berk, of course, and if they found out that Dagur was thinking of attacking then there could be calls for a pre-emptive strike, and going to war just as autumn was closing in was a bad decision no matter who you were.

Tuffnut did at least look chastised. He held up both hands, briefly, and took a step back.

Hiccup sighed. “Once my father has given Berk the story, I will be calling a meeting for everyone who has or can ride a dragon. Not just you guys, but the trainees from this summer, and there’ll be a few others as well, most likely. Astrid, your mother,” he said; she nodded.

“If we make it past the season, I might well be teaching more of the older adults to fly,” Hiccup added, half-braced against his father speaking up and relieved when he did not. They had decided that as well, this morning, quickly but with finality. “Some of our more established fighters. Even if they won’t be using the dragons for fighting, I want them to be able to use them for transport, and for scouting. It will be briefer than the academy that we ran in the summer, just to get them used to dragons.

“Finally, I want to be encouraging dragons to settle in the more open lands around Berk. We need to be careful of the Wildlands, I don’t want clashes there;” especially as he still intended to talk to some of the wildlings before the winter was through. “But some of the old barns and empty houses, the more derelict ones, I want to make suitable for dragons. Stalls, if you will.”

“That’s a lot of changes,” said Astrid. Her arms were folded across her chest, expression grim as she levelled her eyes on him. Stormfly, at her shoulder, looked similarly pensive, but that was not unusual for a Nadder. “Pushing up a schedule?”

“Pretty much,” Hiccup admitted. “I wanted to do things like this more gradually, but if there’s a risk of it becoming a fight then I don’t want us to be in the middle of things. And if the Berserkers know about the dragons, and they were our only regular visitors apart from Johann, then there’s no point us hiding the dragons. We might as well make them an open part of Berk.”

Only as he finished did he look across to his father, who gave a single nod. Hiccup’s heart was pounding in his chest, a buzzing beneath his skin that was almost like the thrill of flight or the intensity of fighting, the same urge to _do_ something. Strange, when everything he was speaking about was a long-term plan.

“So, do you think that my dad would get to fly?” said Snotlout, breaking the tense silence. Hiccup was surprisingly grateful for that. “I mean, I’m pretty sure he’d like to. And he is one of our established fighters,” he added, quickly.

Spitelout on a dragon sounded like an intimidating but overall good idea, even if teaching Spitelout about dragons sounded a little bit like trying to lecture a wall. Once again, Hiccup looked over to his father, who from his expression was having much the same mental conversation. Then again, Snotlout had learnt well. And even Stoick had managed to get to grips with the dragon mentality eventually.

“We’ll see,” said Stoick. “I won’t want anyone essential to be out of action if something does happen. So we might have to keep an eye on events.”

Which sounded like an excellent way to buy them time to think.

“For today, we need to have a town meeting, and then I’m afraid we’re going back to looking at our saddles and equipment,” said Hiccup. It was not the most exciting aspect of flying, even he would admit that, and he genuinely enjoyed the mental workout of figuring out how to improve and refine the designs he had created. Sure enough, nobody looked too pleased with the idea. “Yeah, I know. But it’s better than having a saddle fall apart in mid-air.”

“All right,” said Stoick. Whether he was deliberately heading off any argument from Hiccup’s friends, it was honestly difficult to say, but Hiccup did have his suspicions. It had become more apparent, as he had seen more of his father in action and chiefing, that handling the adults of Berk was not dissimilar to handling its children. “First up is this meeting, and I’d thank you for your assistance in spreading the word. Midday, at the Great Hall.” He clapped his hands. “Let’s go.”

 

 

 

 

 

All that Hiccup wanted to do, throughout the meeting, was hide behind a pillar somewhere. He could not get rid of the creeping guilty feeling that he could have done something to prevent this, could have somehow stopped it from coming to the brink of war in this way. But he knew that all he could do now was try to stop it from being tipped over that brink, and the best way to help with that for now was to stand beside his father.

It went surprisingly quickly and calmly, though. Perhaps because Stoick was framing it as a warning alone, but people muttered and grumbled and were not all that surprised that the year Dagur replaced his father was the year that the warnings came. They agreed to carry more weapons – including bows or crossbows – with them whenever they went to sea, and to redouble the watches on the high points. For however much that would mean once the weather turned and the clouds drew lower again.

Instead of calling everyone back, Hiccup asked all those who had connections to dragons to stay behind, and launched straight into his second dragon rider meeting. They came to little over a dozen, he realised with a sinking feeling, and there were barely any older than him. As the boy he had been, it was amazing; as the son of the chief, having to look out for the whole village, it was worrying. It was like looking over things with two sets of eyes at once.

Despite his concern, everyone managed to play their role well, with no over-acting from the twins and no completely wooden responses from anyone. Those who had not been at the first meeting that morning did not seem to realise that anything was going unsaid. Naturally, they all offered to ride if dragons were available, but Hiccup reminded them that dragons had physical limits as much as humans did. That the dragons were in fact doing more of the work and thus would probably need more breaks than their riders. Only more dragons would answer to that.

He laid out the same plans, received the same nods and positive looks, and dismissed everyone before his legs started shaking too much. Only his father, Anna and Elsa, and Astrid stayed behind; he almost said to Astrid that she was good to go as well, but could not bring himself to. Instead he grabbed the nearest chair and dropped down into it, putting his head in his hands.

“Saddles, huh?” said Astrid, the first one to reach him. Hiccup massaged his browline with his fingertips, then looked up. “This afternoon.”

“Yeah. Saddles. I want to know what’s working and what’s not, as well – if we’re going to have more dragons, we’re going to need more saddles.”

Anna appeared beside Astrid, almost trying to sidle forwards. “So, does this mean there’s going to be more flying?”

He nodded.

“Is there, uh,” Anna reached up and ran a fingertip down her cheek, dislodging the hair sticking to the corner of her mouth. “Pff, sorry. So, is there any chance that I could ride Girl Hookfang from time to time?”

Despite himself, he laughed. “Her name’s not Girl Hookfang.”

“Well, she doesn’t have a name yet!” protested Anna. “So everyone’s been calling her Girl Hookfang. We can still change the name in the future.”

Toothless was still Toothless after all this time, he almost pointed out, but he supposed that sometimes dragons took a little longer to answer to something. Thornado had almost been a process of elimination, it had seemed. “All right,” said Hiccup. “Girl Hookfang it is, for now. And yes, you can ride her, but we will need to get her fitted up for a saddle first.”

He wasn’t sure if Anna heard anything after the ‘but’, as she whooped and punched one first into the air.

“Anna, serious,” he said, for all that it was good to see enthusiasm. He had reprimanded Tuffnut for not dissimilar behaviour, after all.

Anna caught herself, smile evaporating. “Right. Serious. Sorry.”

“Come on.” He clapped his thigh, and pushed to his feet again. “We’ll go to the academy, and start on the saddle plans. Shouldn’t have to modify Hookfang’s too much; she’s only a little larger than him.  You ever worked with leather before?”

For the first time, Anna actually looked concerned. “No…”

“Good. Today’s going to be a learning experience after all.”

 

 

 

 

 

There was a strange sense of detachment, in the end, as he watched things start to take shape. The mere rumour that Hiccup was going to be having another round of teaching at the academy, this time for adults, seemed to get everyone excited, and within a few days he was getting people asking how many he would be teaching at once. He still wasn’t sure of that yet. They had saddles for Girl Hookfang – the name seemed to be sticking – and the three new Gronckles in no time at all, and Stoick procured a large, good-quality parchment for Hiccup to not just map out the archipelago, but also note which islands were inhabited by what dragons. He started with Berk in the centre, and worked from there.

“At least Berk seems to be behind us,” he said to Astrid, in the academy as evening fell around them. “There’s no arguments this time.”

She shrugged. “Looks like Mildew really was the end of it. Or at least the loudest one. Everyone else has accepted that Berk is going to have dragons, and it’s just a choice whether they interact with them or not.”

“Well, I guess I do my best to avoid sheep,” said Hiccup.

He turned to another page in his notebook, then tilted his head trying to make sense of his notes. They appeared to have been scrawled while he was hunkered under a low rock to keep out of a sudden rainstorm, which was honestly pretty likely after this summer. It did not make for the most legible results, though.

“What does that say?” said Astrid, craning over his shoulder.

Resisting the urge to turn the page upside down, Hiccup squinted more closely at it. “Not a clue. I may have to work at deciphering that this evening.”

Shortening words seemed like a great idea at the time, to save space and time as he wrote, but a few moons later it turned into guesswork.

“I might ask Anna and Elsa. They’re pretty good at guessing. Or at least giving entertaining alternatives.” Anna in particular seemed to have a liking for making up wild stories of Hiccup’s adventures, when most of his trips had actually involved sitting on a rock in the sun, or under a rock out of the rain, and scribbling about what he could see. A bag of dried fish and some dragon nip did not go awry when trying to befriend the local dragons, either.

“They’re settled in well, huh?”

Hiccup smiled. Despite a few incidents over the tail end of the summer, they were; it was almost as if Elsa were settling in all over again, in some ways. “Yes. And I would like to thank you for _not_ teaching rude words to the Queen of Arendelle over the past couple of moons.”

“I’m still working on her weapons vocabulary,” said Astrid, with an easy grin. She leant on the table, folding her bare arms. Although she had been out flying that morning, she had spent the afternoon working hides with her mother, and though she would not admit it Hiccup knew from the summer that it always left her forearms softer than usual to the touch. The scar on her wrist from the Speedstinger attack caught Hiccup’s eye, and his smile faded. “There’s a few types of axes she can’t distinguish between yet.”

“Between that and teaching them both about chainmail patterns, Gobber might take on her as his new apprentice,” said Hiccup.

A moment hung between them in the air as they both imagined the Queen of Arendelle as a blacksmith’s apprentice, and then Hiccup started laughing at how well it would probably fit. Astrid chuckled, shaking her head, then looked down at his map instead.

“It’s taking shape.”

“Slowly,” he said with a grimace. But still more quickly than he had intended.

Astrid put her hand over his, where it rested on the map. He hadn’t realised that he had slowly been forming a fist, and now he let his fingers relax again. She leant in close enough that her chin was on his shoulder, hair brushing his cheek, and the spikes of her skirt pressed uncomfortably against his hip. But the rest of the touch was worth it.

“You’ll get there.” Her nose brushed against his cheekbone, and it made him feel giddy and grounded at the same time. “And when you do, we’re all right behind you.”

“I hope the twins aren’t too close behind. I don’t trust them not to set my hair on fire.”

Astrid snorted with laughter, which should have been annoying right next to his ear but which he could only find cute, and slapped his shoulder. Then she swayed back, and he almost leant with her just to keep in contact, but with some regret he let her go again.

“We’ll get them to set Dagur’s hair on fire instead,” she suggested.

Well, there were probably worse plans in the world. Hiccup started to roll up his map in readiness to head home. “I’ll work that into my plans for next time I see him.”

For all his smile, he knew that there would be a next time. And he was not looking forward to it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to _The Patrol Arc_.

It was only spitting with rain as Hiccup came in for a landing, which for Berk was pretty reasonable really. One of the advantages of a dragon Toothless’s size was that they could fly right down the entrance to the academy and set down lightly on the beaten-earth floor; that was probably a bit of an example of laziness, if Hiccup thought about it too hard, but after several hours in the saddle he did not trust himself not to fall over if he had to walk down the slope into the academy on his own foot.

He was the only one who did his patrolling and searching alone, unless Stoick had the time to spend a morning or an afternoon joining him. Everyone else had to be in pairs, he had said, with the exception of the twins who needed to have a third person with them. That was mostly about making sure that they always had two dragons, but admittedly partially about making sure that nobody was left to get freely into trouble. Two brains were better than one, and it often seemed that the twins were just too closely aligned in their thoughts to actually act as checks on each other.

Girl Hookfang was out of her pen, he noted, and then realised as well that he had called the female Nightmare Girl Hookfang. Clearly, the madness was spreading. More to the point, Anna was there as well, with a slightly ragged-looking leather vest to keep the worst of the rain off and a big smile as she adjusted the straps for Girl Hookfang’s saddle.

“Well I’ve got my saddle,” she was singing, “and my bridle too, and I’ve never met a dragon as _cute as you_ ;” she waggled her hips in time with the words; “I’m a dragon rider through and through!”

“What–” Hiccup began, then his brain caught up. “Fishlegs’s version, of course.”

Anna yelped and spun round, looking impressively alarmed and trying-to-look-innocent. She relaxed when she saw that it was Hiccup. “You need a bell or something.”

“That would spoil the fun,” he replied. “You good to be patrolling with Fishlegs this afternoon?”

She nodded. As summer had turned to autumn, both she and Elsa had mellowed and calmed, becoming less frantic in their need to keep each other in sight at all times. She had been a little disappointed when Elsa said that she would rather not be involved in the patrolling unless another person was needed to make up numbers, but enjoyed the dragons too much to pull out as well. Hiccup was grateful; they had few enough riders as it was.

“By the way,” Hiccup added, “you were singing it wrong.”

“The words are made up!” she protested. “You told me that.”

“Yes,” he said, walking over to the largest pen where they had painted a large, rough map on the wall. Several pieces of chalk had been placed in a box at the foot of it, and Hiccup grabbed the one that was the best shape for writing. He had several more islands to mark as clear, having been more thoroughly checked for signs of human use than the search for dragons that had occupied them this summer. “But there are still rules. It should be, _I’ve got my something and I’ve got my something_. No ‘too’ on the end.”

“Seriously?” she folded her arms.

“Those are the rules of the game.” Hiccup marked off which islands he had seen that were clear, and marked out where he had seen new ones on the horizon. “And all songs like that are a game. Wait till you hear some of the Snoggletog ones.”

Apparently Anna was at a loss for an answer for that one, because she pulled a face at him, scrunching up her nose. Hiccup smiled, replaced the chalk, and dusted off his hands. “Fishlegs has been doing well at this. You’ll be fine.”

“It’s fun,” said Anna, with a glance round to Girl Hookfang. “As long as the weather holds.”

“Once it turns, we’ll be cutting right back,” said Hiccup. It was possibly the worst time to be trying to get people to search, he knew that; people were needed for the harvests, to care for the animals, to shore up houses against the winter. But they needed to do as much as they could, while they could. “And Sven Duskcrook says that he’ll have those warmer boots done for you, as well.”

“Thanks.”

“I’d best get going. Nothing to report, but I need to tell my father that anyway,” he said, with a shrug. It had seemed strange at first, until he had realised just what a relief it was to hear that nothing was out there waiting. “I’ll see you later.”

As he climbed back into Toothless’s saddle, he heard her start singing Viking Through and Through to herself again, toying with the lyrics. It was all that he could do not to start laughing until he was in the air and heading back for Berk, pace slow and lazy for Toothless.

His mood dimmed, though, as he thought about the fact that Kristoff had visited for the last time under the pretext of bringing ice, and would need a more pressing reason – and some method of communication – to come again. Without him, they had little idea what was happening in Arendelle, although they were planning to talk to Trader Johann in case he had been able to dock there.

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but he caught sight of people hurrying around in the vicinity of the docks, and more from instinct than reason turned in that direction. A gust of headwind bought with it a sense of clamour, and Hiccup bent lower to Toothless’s back to steal a little more speed, covering the distance in heartbeats.

A boat at the edge of the wharves still had its sails at full, rocking even in the sheltered area, and there was a crowd around them. He caught snatches of shouting on the air. Hiccup scanned the wharves for a landing place, but it was all too chaotic; even Thornado was perched on the roof of one of the buildings on the clifftops and surveying everything from a safe distance.

Cursing beneath his breath, Hiccup made a snap decision, and dropped down out of the sky with just enough restraint that the air did not whistle too much around them. Toothless’s wings stretched wide, pounding to slow them down and land on one of the boats near to the crowd. It was a tight fit onto the uneven deck, and Hiccup staggered out of the saddle to clutch at the mast, but they made it.

“Well done, Toothless,” he said fervently. Toothless rumbled. “Stay here.”

He followed it up with the soft double pat that always accompanied those words nowadays, and climbed up onto the wharves with only a minimum of hauling. The tide was low, a bad time to put in, even if the wind would probably have been in their favour. Hiccup hurried over to the crowd, hearing his father talking over people but not able to make out clear words, and by a combination of dodging and application of his elbow managed to make his way to the front.

Brynnhild was sitting in the hull of the boat, bloodstained cloths wrapped around her right forearm and bruises starting to appear on her face. Her lip was split. Of the three others who had been out on the small boat with her, all seemed to be sporting minor injuries, but nothing as severe as hers; it was still hard to look at it rationally when there were bloody footprints, smears, spatters all over the boat.

“You’re sure that it was the Outcasts,” Stoick was saying, just as Hiccup managed to get close enough to hear properly.

Brynnhild looked at him levelly. “Aye. They had the insignia on their shields, if not their sails. And I heard one of them mention Alvin.”

“You did well to repel them,” said Stoick, voice grim, with a look around the boat. “And with so little injury, as well. Were any of them killed?”

With a sigh, Brynnhild shook her head. “Some injuries. Worse than us; that’s their blood,” she added, waving to the bloody patterns with her good hand. “Mostly.”

Hiccup carefully stepped down into the boat, trying to avoid the worst of the blood. Both Brynnhild and Stoick looked up, and acknowledged him with a nod. “Do you want me to get Gothi?” he said.

“No,” said Stoick. “Someone caught sight of Snotlout, and sent him. She should be here shortly.”

All that Hiccup could do was nod, and step closer to them both. He still felt out of place, but at least tried not to look it as he waited with his father for Brynnhild to continue.

“They wanted the ship,” she said, with a meaningful look up at Stoick. “One of them suggested fire, and the woman among them punched him for it. She said they needed it intact.”

“There’s not enough wood for good boats,” said Stoick. “They must be trying to steal them.” He shook his head. A large shadow passed over them, and Hiccup looked up to see Hookfang and Snotlout moving out over the sea to where they could lose altitude more safely. “Thank you, Brynnhild,” Stoick added, patting her on the shoulder.

“There’s this, as well,” she said, lowering her voice. She drew a fabric-wrapped bundle from her belt, and handed it over to Stoick. “I recognise the workmanship. Not in the crowd, though.”

Stoick nodded without looking down at the item, and slipped it straight into his belt on the side that was hidden from the docks. “Come on,” he said, as Snotlout turned back towards them, now almost at sea level. He nodded to Hiccup. “You help Brynnhild out of the boat, I’ll clear some space. Move back!” he hollered, turning and cupping his hands around his mouth as he dropped back – or perhaps climbed up – to his well-known bellow.

“There’s my father back,” muttered Hiccup. He offered a hand to Brynnhild, not quite sure what his father expected of him, but as she got to her feet she leant heavily on him and he realised that he should brace himself somewhat. He helped her to the edge of the boat, which was not exactly at its calmest beneath them, as she limped heavily on her right foot. Other people stretched down to help her up onto the wharves – everyone in range, that was how it was on Berk – and helped her up just as Gothi slid down from behind Snotlout and paused only long enough to shoot him a glare and clip him on the back of the head with her staff.

As entertaining as it would doubtless be to watch Gothi silently berate Snotlout further, Hiccup climbed back out of the boat as well. Stoick was barking orders, calling for the ship to be unloaded, the blood to be cleaned, and for the word to be put out for all of their fishing boats to be more careful. Just as Hiccup was about to head after him, he called for Thornado, and that was as good a signal as any that this was moving back up to the main village.

They both landed just outside the house, but Hiccup’s foot caught in his stirrup and there was a brief, embarrassing moment when he almost fell flat on his face. By the time that he had unclipped himself, and decided that his most recent adjustment to the stirrup needed undoing the next time that the smithy was available, Stoick had stopped and was looking down at something in his hand.

“Dad?” said Hiccup, quietly. He walked to stand beside his father, to see that Stoick was holding a dagger, the hilt cupped so that it could still be seen. Hiccup stared blankly at the familiar work. “How…”

“Gobber traded it to Johann in the summer,” said Stoick. “The question is how it got from Johann to the Outcasts.”

Hiccup was not even sure how he could say with such certainty that the dagger had been made by Gobber. There was no unique manner of working about it – not the harder steel edge that had been inserted, not the way that the wood of the hilt was carved, not the way that copper had been used to highlight the crossguard. But there was something _about_ the edge and the hilt and the decoration altogether that made him know that it had come out of Gobber’s forge, and from Gobber’s hand.

“I see two options,” said Stoick, “and we’ll know which of them it was by whether or not Johann arrives for his autumn trade.”

It was more than clear enough what that meant. Hiccup hoped that Johann would be arriving, that the Outcasts had not captured him or worse. But if that was not the case, then Johann had willingly traded with them, something which he had sworn to Berk that he would never do.

“So it’s a damned mess whichever way we cut it,” concluded Hiccup, running a hand over his face.

Stoick gave him a look which said that, although he was not going to use such language, he was in general agreement. Either Johann was dealing with the Outcasts, or he had run into them and undoubtedly come off the worse.

“And all that we can do is wait,” Hiccup added. “Brilliant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was, at least, one thing going right. They had intended to keep using the academy regularly until the rain really started coming in, which knowing Berk would also not be that far away. The ominous rumble of a thunderstorm was all the warning that they got, though, and there was only just enough time for them to scramble into one of the pens with whatever they had been working on before the heavens opened.

“Wow,” said Anna, practically having to shout over the rain. She was still holding the axe and shield in which Astrid was still trying to train her. Apparently she fought like a southern wuss when given an axe, although that summary had been enough to make her kick Astrid in the kneecap, which was a good start. “You get real storms up here, huh?”

“Yup,” said Hiccup. A half-made saddle for one of the Gronckles was under his arm. He removed the needle from between his teeth and tucked it through the collar of his tunic instead. “Well, that might be the official start of autumn. Sky looks pretty solidly dark,” he added, peering as far around as he could without sticking his hand into the near-wall of water outside the doors. “Probably means this is going to last a while.”

“So, do we just wait it out?” Anna said.

Hiccup looked over at Fishlegs, the only other one who had dived into this particular pen. Fishlegs shrugged, and Hiccup remembered that he was the one who always ended up making the call of these things.

“We might have to look at heading back. Not sure which pen Toothless is in.” Even Stormfly had come running down into one of the pens ahead of the rain, although neither Barf and Belch nor Hookfang had seemed to have any such desire. Meatlug, her young, and one of the other Gronckles were all in the same pen as Hiccup. It made it rather cosy.

He was still weighing it up when a pale smudge in the thick distorted curtain of rain caught his attention, and he squinted through. It was something of a surprise when he realised it was Elsa; though she was less likely to pull a face at the rain than Anna, this was not even a usual amount of rain. It was something _more_ of a surprise when he realised that she was not even heading towards one of the other pens, but had stopped right in the middle of the academy.

A flicker of movement; blue light poured upwards from her hand to reach the bars above. It spread, pale blue against the bruise-dark sky, and slowly the thunder of the rain shifted in tone as the disc of ice spread across the roof of the academy.

It reached the edges, the rain became a more muted rumble, and abruptly the air around them was dry even if there was an inch of water on the ground and more still running in at the entrance. Hiccup splashed back out into the academy proper, and looked around to a number of surprised faces.

“Does anyone else think that putting things underground is a bad idea in Berk?” said Anna.

Hiccup burst out laughing, the sound reflecting oddly in the now-enclosed space, and Elsa smiled at them both. “There are drains in the pens,” he said, “and it keeps the ground washed. But they aren’t so great at handling those sorts of storms. There should be some by the door, as well.”

Sure enough, the holes by the doors were still in place, two holes each a handspan across with a ceramic pot sunk into them. There were holes in the pot, but it looked like they had become blocked with leaves. Clearing them had been part of Hiccup’s job last year, but apparently nobody had thought to do the same this time around. Hiccup sighed, dug out two handfuls of soggy mush, and left it in a pile to finish clearing out later. Immediately, the water started streaming down the holes.

He shook his grubby hand as he stood up, then wiped it on his thigh as he turned round to face the others. The twins had already climbed onto a table to try to see the ceiling more closely, and Elsa’s hands had wound together, with or without her knowledge, as she watched them.

“All right,” said Snotlout, a little grudgingly. “I’ll admit it, that is pretty cool. And useful.”

“Snotl – _Tuff_ , stop trying to climb on Ruff’s shoulders,” said Hiccup, seeing the first signs of movement from the twins and guessing exactly where that was going. “Get down. Snotlout, be nice or you can go patrol in this rain. Elsa, thank you. None of us thought of that.”

“Why _didn’t_ you have a solid roof on this place?” said Anna. She retrieved Joan from the pen in which the Terror had been waiting while she sparred, and tucked her back around her shoulders.

“Had to fight dragons in any weather,” Hiccup replied. “No use having fair-weather warriors around Berk.”

The sheets of ice towards the centre of the roof were frosted and cloudy, but the ones towards the edges were almost as clear as glass. He could see the raindrops on the far side of them. Toothless padded out of one of the pens, reared up onto his back legs, and tried to sniff at the ceiling in a manner that was really not all that much better than the twins. Hiccup sighed.

“So, does this mean that _now_ you could do the awesome armour thing again?” said Tuffnut, sidling over to Elsa.

Just about everyone in the academy stared at him blankly, the silence broken only by the rain overhead.

“You know,” Tuffnut continued. “Against the Red Death, you did that super-cool armour thing?” He made some vague gestures around his shoulders which bore no resemblance to anything that Hiccup had ever seen Elsa do with her ice. “And then we asked you this time last year, and you said no? But you use your ice so much more, now,” he pointed up to the roof again, “so do you think you could redo it?”

For a moment, Hiccup wondered whether the rain would actually make for a refreshing walk. Or at least whether he could get away with ordering the twins out into it.

“Not all of it,” said Elsa cautiously. It was still a huge step from her fear last year, however, and both of the twins perked up at the sight of it. “But I suppose…”

She held up both hands, light glimmering on them once again. It rolled down over her skin, stopped neatly in the middle of her forearms, and the light faded to reveal a perfect pair of chainmail mitons in their wake. It was only as the twins’ faces took on looks of identical awe that Hiccup realised that nobody outside their house had seen them. Fishlegs managed to let his notebook drop, while Snotlout settled for letting his jaw drop instead.

As Elsa looked away from her hands, the entranced smile on her face became a little more nervous again, and she pulled off the mitons as she walked over to the twins, offering one to each.

“That – is so – _awesome_!” Tuffnut shouted abruptly, making Elsa jump.

Ruffnut immediately tried to jam one of her hands into hers, but encountered exactly the same problem that Hiccup had and could not get the widest part of her hand in. Her face fell. “Aww…”

“Could you do them for us?” said Tuffnut. He sniffed the miton, for reasons known only to himself, but was still grinning so it must have been acceptable. “Like, ice gloves! Pow! Pow!” he mimed punching Ruffnut.

This may have been a mistake, since she immediately turned around and punched him in the face, the ice miton wrapped around her fist like a knuckleduster. Caught off-guard, Tuffnut was knocked to the ground with a yell, dropping the second miton as he did so.

“I have not done them on anyone else,” said Elsa. Slightly more of an edge was back in her voice, enough to make Hiccup watch cautiously and be ready to step in if need be.

It was Anna, though, who put a hand on Elsa’s shoulder. “You could start with me,” she said. As Elsa bit her lip, Anna rolled up her sleeve, and extended both hands. Her smile was nothing but warm. “I trust you.”

Elsa hesitated, and Hiccup thought that he saw her right hand tremble, but then she reached out and took both of Anna’s hands in hers. “Tell me,” she said firmly. “Tell me if _anything_ feels wrong.”

Anna just nodded.

Elsa shifted their hands so that her fingers were just supporting Anna’s, and as Hiccup walked closer he saw the slow swell of blue light from her touch. It held there, Elsa glancing up again though Anna kept watching, entranced, and then slowly spread down over Anna’s skin. It crept down her fingertips like honey, dwelled on her knuckles, then Elsa raised Anna’s hands up and the magic flowed down to settle in the middle of her forearms, before the glow faded and left ice behind in its wake.

Amazement was still clear on Anna’s features, but Elsa looked at her nervously, breathing fast. “Anna?” she said.

Anna’s smile spread as she drew her hands out of Elsa’s, then she gave a delighted laugh and twirled on the spot, both hands held up. “They’re perfect! I hardly even felt it,” she said, coming back to face Elsa. “It’s kinda like going swimming in cool water. I can feel them there, and it’s sort of chainmail-textured,” she wiggled her fingers, “but it’s so much lighter!”

Despite herself, Elsa smiled, even if she jumped a little when Hiccup touched her on the shoulder in turn. “Well done,” he said. “But remember, both of you,” he said, looking pointedly at Anna, “chainmail is usually worn over leather anyway. So it won’t need to be anything like that fitted.”

“They’re still so perfect, though,” said Anna, rapidly flexing and straightening her fingers. The mail glittered even in the dim light. “Look.”

Hiccup caught one of her hands and examined the miton. The rings looked, if anything, even finer than the last one that he had examined, and the fingertips were better fitted with less unevenness to the way that the rings interlinked. He had seen Elsa do her own gloves perhaps half a dozen times, and the joins had gradually grown smoother with each one.

“Those do look really good,” he said, mostly to Elsa. “If I could make mail like this… I would be making a bloody good living as a blacksmith.”

“Perhaps,” she said, still carefully, “I will try other items soon.”

“Only if you feel comfortable with it.”

Elsa nodded, smiling, and he patted her arm again. Of course, whatever sort of moment they might have had between them was broken by Ruffnut marching over and examining Anna’s hands as well, as if confirming that the gloves were, in fact, real.

“So, can you do us?” said Tuffnut, back on his feet and wide-eyed with eagerness. He shoved Ruffnut out of the way, and was shoved right back.

This time, Elsa only hesitated for a moment. “Only gloves,” she said.

“Yes!” Ruffnut punched the air. “Gloves for everyone!”

 

 

 

 

 

It was Astrid who spotted Johann’s boat, returning from a patrol with Clueless that had left both of them soaked to the skin but had still been more fruitful than anything that the others had managed. They had found signs that someone had landed on one of the islands to the north, well beyond the Outcasts, and it was that which she was focused on when she came to report to Stoick and Hiccup. Mentioning Johann was merely an aside, but she did not miss the way that Hiccup sat up straighter in his chair and even Stoick paused.

“What’s going on with Johann?” she said bluntly.

Hiccup’s instinct was to tell her at least something, but he held his tongue and looked over to his father. Stoick also knew Astrid well enough to know that she was unlikely to back down, and sighed. “We need to speak to him, before he reaches Berk,” he said. “We have reason to believe he’s been trading with the Outcasts.”

Astrid drew in her breath sharply. “That’s a pretty big accusation…”

“Which is why we need to be certain of it,” said Stoick. “Is there land, between where you saw him and here?”

“Yes,” said Astrid. She pointed out a stretch of water on the map between them at the table. “He was here, working at an angle to the wind, maybe two or three hours ago. He should be pretty much within sight of this spire,” she indicated a smaller island, “unless the visibility is still very low out there. It was clearing as I came in to Berk, though.”

“Thank you, Astrid.” Stoick got to his feet, and Hiccup hastily followed him. “Hiccup, fetch Toothless; I’ll be saddling Thornado. We need to speak to Johann out there, if he gets to Berk the rest of the village will be wanting to trade with him.”

Before either of them had the opportunity to react, Stoick was striding from the room, the door banging closed behind him. Hiccup and Astrid looked at each other, Astrid raising her eyebrows, then Hiccup skirted around the table and took her hand. She may have just been too surprised to pull away from it.

“You just saved us a major scene,” he said. “Goods from Berk were found on the Outcast ship that attacked Brynnhild and her crew, you remember?”

“Yes. And I remember you adding them to our patrol lookout list.”

If the Outcasts were able to muster boats and were starting to dabble in piracy, then the seas had become even more dangerous. “Exactly. It’s just… one more thing to add to the list right now.”

The Silver Priests. Dagur. Alvin. The wildlings; they would become a problem again as winter closed in and Slaughter Day rolled round again in just a few moons now. It was getting a little bit ridiculous.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. Toothless’s saddle and tail were upstairs, the dragon himself perched in the rafters and watching everything. “My dad’s getting quick at saddling up Thornado these days.”

“Be careful,” said Astrid, as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He’d answered that flippantly too many times over the years. This time, Hiccup opted for a smile, and took the steps two at a time on his way up.

 

 

 

 

 

Compared to a Night Fury, nothing really felt fast, but Thunderdrums had a surprising turn of speed to them in the air or in water. It had taken a couple of moons in the spring for Stoick to get Thornado to stop dunking him in water from time to time, but once it had been achieved things had gone a lot more smoothly. A better saddle had also been of assistance.

They flew in the direction that Astrid had indicated, pretty much in silence. It was still raining, but as Astrid had said the visibility was gradually becoming better, and it was slacking off even as they headed north-east.

It did not take them long to see Johann’s familiar striped sails, the boat still sailing despite the rain as well. It was not a storm, the wind not too strong, and although nobody had managed to find out where Johann was actually from, he did seem to be able to handle weather like any Viking. When Stoick looked across, Hiccup waved for his father to take the lead, that this was a chiefing matter rather than one for the dragon riders. There was indeed an island not all that far away, a ragged cluster of stone but one which did look to have a rock beach that it would be possible to make land on, and the wind should allow Johann to head in that direction.

With a flick of Thornado’s reins which was not necessary, but which Stoick did not seem to be able to shake as a habit, they descended towards the ship. It looked like it might have been spruced up since the last year, with a new carving on the prow, but it was still definitely Johann’s ship, and the man at the tiller was still definitely the trader himself.

Hiccup hung back as his father swooped in, apparently startling Johann despite the fact that Hiccup had always found Vikings on dragons to be remarkably noticeable.

“Chief!” called Johann. “I could not have expected to find you here? Tell me, did you wish to see my goods early? I could have arranged for that on the shore!”

“No, Johann,” Stoick shouted back. “We need to speak to you privately. Turn your ship to the port, for that island.” He pointed it out through the rain. “We will meet you there.”

Johann laughed, but it sounded nervous. “Surely this can be handled on Berk, Stoick–”

“No,” said Stoick, and though it was no louder than he had shouted before it seemed more ominous in how clipped it was. “This time, it is a requirement of landing on Berk.”

It was enough to make Johann hesitate, and then to nod his agreement, and as he set his hand to the tiller Stoick pulled up again alongside Hiccup in the air. He did not have to tell Hiccup to turn towards the island, and with the rain barely more than drizzling they landed on the grey-stoned beach.

“Do you think he’ll admit to it?” said Hiccup.

Stoick drew the dagger that had started it all – a sheath had since been found for it – from his belt, and gave Hiccup a pointed look. Neither of them wanted to stop Johann from visiting Berk; in all honesty, Berk could use more traders visiting. It was only Berk’s stubbornness, and probably Stoick’s influence, that stopped Johann from being able to ask for ludicrously high prices for the things that he bought in. Technically, they were almost all luxuries; Berk could be self-sufficient other than in iron. But it did brighten things more than a little to have that variety.

The rain continued to abate. In the shelter of the rocky spire, the beach was almost dry, and Hiccup found himself looking at the stones on the shore out of habit. Mostly the hard, volcanic rocks that dominated to the east of Dragon Island, though with a few that he did not immediately recognise. Probably not the time to pick up stray stones for Fishlegs, however.

Stoick’s face was grim and set, and when he breathed deeply the cloak looked heavy on his shoulders. The leather vest, even with the Night Fury on the back, did not quite feel like a comparison even as Hiccup tried to adopt a similarly confident stance. Toothless hung back, while Thornado paddled in the waves and occasionally snorted contentedly to himself.

As Johann came in to shore, he tossed a rope to them, and Stoick grabbed hold immediately. Hiccup guided Toothless onto the rope as well, and between them they hauled the boat close enough to shore that Johann could drop anchor, push down a gangplank, and barely get his boots wet as he came ashore.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Johann, hands clasped together. “To what do I owe your illustrious presences? Does it pertain, perhaps, to one of the many wonderful trinkets which I have aboard my vessel?”

“Not one which you still have aboard, Johann,” said Stoick. He spun the dagger in his hand and stepped forwards, pointing the hilt towards Johann. Johann glanced at the dagger, then did a double-take, his eyes going wide. “I know you’ve got a good memory for that which you buy and sell;” Stoick continued. “It’s a must, in your profession. So perhaps you can tell me about this.”

“N-now, there’s a funny story about that,” Johann began. Stoick’s frown deepened, and visible fear flitted across Johann’s face just from the sight of it. If he were honest, Hiccup was not all that impressed; Stoick had given Hiccup similar looks for any number of the foolish things that he had done during dragon attacks as a child. “I was somewhat to the east of here, actually, on the little-known island of–”

“Johann, considering we have the dagger, we know where it ended up,” said Hiccup flatly. Standing at his father’s shoulder and looking intimidating was not exactly something for which he had the right build; it might have worked the other way around, he supposed.

Johann swallowed. “And I don’t suppose that you would believe me when I told you that I really did sell it somewhere east of here, and it must have made its way back otherwise.”

“No,” said Stoick.

“You didn’t look surprised to see it,” Hiccup pointed out. “You looked worried. If you’d sold it somewhere to the east, you wouldn’t have expected to see it back here again, but you were concerned that it was a possibility.”

“Very well.” Johann’s hands twisted together, and he averted his eyes. “This spring, while I was on my first journey of the year towards your fair island, I was waylaid while at sea by a mismatched crew in a rather sorry-looking boat, who–”

“The brief version, Johann,” said Stoick.

He seemed to consider it for only a moment. “The Outcasts, led by Alvin the Treacherous, held my ship hostage in order that I trade with them. They bought every weapon that I had left, after visiting yourselves, as well as other supplies, in exchange for a significant amount of dragon-related produce and some finely-knapped obsidian of the sort which is well-received in the Barbarous Isles.”

“They forced you to _trade_ with them?” said Stoick. He glanced across to Hiccup. “Alvin was not much of a trader, when I knew him.”

“Ahh, Stoick, you see–”

“He wanted you to be able to keep trading,” said Hiccup. Johann looked even more deflated. “He wanted you to be economically viable. Because he wanted you to come back in the summer.”

Stoick looked round sharply.

“Aye, Master Hiccup,” Johann said.

“You said it yourself,” said Hiccup to his father, with a faint shrug. “Gobber traded this knife in the summer. It can’t have been taken in the spring.”

“So you went back,” said Stoick stonily. Johann flinched, which to Hiccup was again something of an overreaction but probably also a sign that Johann knew exactly how badly he had screwed up. Hiccup recognised the realisation.

“They had warned me that if I tried to change my routes, they knew every way from Berk to other islands,” said Johann quickly, his usual blustering phrases fading away for a moment. “I was threatened with violence if I did not visit them, or if I informed you of their demands. I do hope that this will not have adverse consequences,” he added more quietly, with a glance over his shoulder at the open sea.

“You might wish to be more worried about other consequences,” Stoick said. “No matter what Alvin and his men may have threatened, and indeed what they might be doing, they cannot hear your conversations from afar. What did they trade with you this time?”

“Weapons once again,” he replied. “Some shipwright’s tools which I had marked for the Berserkers, and a healing concoction from the south, said to have wondrous properties. Perhaps most curiously, in the spring they demanded that I bring two things on my summer rounds, namely the oil of the blue oleander plant and half a dozen small mirrors, the ones of silvered glass from the south. They were not worried about the size or shape of the mirrors, only of their quality, and this time they paid me in gold.”

“And what did they want from your autumn trade?” said Hiccup.

“It was most peculiar,” said Johann, “they wanted two small red stones – it did not matter what, they said, but red and faceted – and if possible something that… might smell of you, Master Hiccup.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

“Well, peculiar is one word for it,” said Hiccup.

Stoick reached up to run his hand over his beard, then turned sharply and walked a few paces away. He made an imposing figure on the grey, barren beach. Behind him, Johann looked at Hiccup with panic in his eyes, as if Hiccup were somehow the one influencing this, but Hiccup merely kept a straight face as he caught the man’s eye. He needed time to sit back and think on the things that the Outcasts had called for; Alvin was not a fool, and would not be asking for trinkets.

Finally, Stoick turned back to face them again. “Very well,” he said. “Johann, you may continue on to Berk. Do not talk to anyone there about this conversation.”

“I was not planning to,” said Johann fervently.

“We will speak to you one evening, either the first or second while you are on Berk, once the rush of trading has died down. Until then, trade as if nothing has changed; we do not want any suspicion. I am glad that you have told us now, although I wish that you had done so immediately, and would ask;” his tone of voice did not make it sound optional; “that should anything else occur in future, you will tell us immediately.

“But for now, we will assist you back out onto the open water, and after that, we shall see you on Berk.” That was not a question either. “You have been most helpful.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First half Hiccstrid and plot. Second half chaos and plot. Tuffnut is heavily implied to have done something really, really gross.

Berserkers. Outcasts. Arendelle. Berserkers. Outcasts. Arendelle.

Hiccup watched from the top of the cliffs as Johann conducted his trade at the wharves as if nothing was even different. The weather was not enough to put off Berkians, but for sitting in place for some hours Hiccup had put up a small tent, little more than a leather sheet over his head and a mat to sit on, while Toothless sat contentedly in the rain outside. It probably was nicer when you were naturally waterproof.

He had no idea what the Berserkers were doing. The season was creeping closer and closer to its close, and after that time they would be unable to sail more than a few hours’ distance from their island. They were still well within a day’s flight, though, he supposed; if need be, they could do reconnaissance over the winter.

The Outcasts were harder. Weapons and shipwright’s tools made sense – they had clearly managed to cobble together at least two boats by the time that they had kidnapped Hiccup the previous autumn, and it sounded as if they were trying to build themselves more of a fleet. Healing potions were unsurprising as well. But mirrors, some plant called blue oleander, gems and items of Hiccup’s? Those, he could not fathom. Unless they had some dogs that they were training to attack the smell of him. Mirrors and gems were luxuries, though, and Hiccup could not see Alvin asking for them unless he had something planned.

He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

Astrid cleared her throat just outside his shelter, and he leant forward to wave her in. The shelters were able to handle a full-sized Viking, so Hiccup hardly made a dent in it, and there was more than enough room for her to sit cross-legged beside him, even if she nearly elbowed him in the face taking off her cloak and hood.

“So, what are you brooding on?” she said.

“I’m not brooding,” replied Hiccup, not looking away from the trade below. He was not sure whether Johann was actually acting nervous, or whether Hiccup was just watching him more closely than ever.

Astrid made a derisive sound. “Sure you aren’t.”

“I’m just thinking about what Johann said,” said Hiccup, with a wave to the scene below him. He drummed his fingers on his knee. “Say, Astrid, if you were planning to take over Berk, weapons and shipwright’s tools would be a good idea, right?”

“Sure.”

“But what would you do with mirrors, two red jewels, and a bottle of blue oleander oil?”

She looked at him as if he had gone completely insane. “Is this a trick question?”

“Sadly, no.” He picked up a small pebble from the ground in front of them, and flicked it over the edge. It disappeared into nothingness. “This is the list of things that Alvin the Treacherous has specifically asked Johann to bring him, over the course of this year. I’m just trying to figure out what he wants with them.”

“Maybe Alvin finally wants to sort his beard out,” said Astrid. When Hiccup sighed and looked at her, she shrugged. “What? No, Hiccup, I have no idea what Alvin wants with them. I’ll think on it for you, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Shaking his head, he leant back on his hands instead of forwards onto his knees, and felt a stiffness in his neck from the amount of time that he had spent looking downwards. He was on his last flask of water, as well, although that was more of an annoyance than anything serious. “You know, the one I feel worst for is Anna. She’s got enough problems of her own, without getting dragged into Berk’s.”

Astrid shoved his shoulder with her own. That in itself would not have hurt, but Hiccup grunted as her spikes dug into his shoulder, and reached up to rub it as she pulled away. “You could argue that you have enough problems without getting dragged into Arendelle’s.”

“I’m choosing to get involved in Arendelle’s.”

“Then let her have the right to choose to get involved in Berk’s,” said Astrid.

She had a point. No, she more than had a point, she was flat-out right; Anna was older than them, Queen, and certainly knew her own mind. If Hiccup couldn’t win an argument with her about which bedroom she should have, he certainly wouldn’t be able to win one with her over something as big as this. It still didn’t make Hiccup feel that much better, though. He wished that there were at least one thing that could be dealt with swiftly, or easily, or both.

“At least she’s enjoying flying,” Astrid added. “Hasn’t met a dragon she won’t ride. Does that Terrible Terror always live down her cleavage?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “I should probably teach her to ride Toothless. Just in case. You and my Dad and Elsa already know, but I want a handful of people who can, just in case I’m not available or I’ve damaged my foot or something.”

The rain became slightly heavier, spattering against the leather over their heads, and Hiccup glanced up at the increasing sound. He had been intending to trade with Johann himself this autumn, but was not sure that he would be able to bring himself to do so now. There was nothing that urgent, anyway, unless Johann had come across the green metal that had been used to shackle Elsa in Arendelle. He might still be able to do that; if not, he would probably ask Gobber to question Johann on his behalf.

Although he still needed to talk to Johann alongside his father on an official basis. Perhaps it would be easier to just take the green metal with him then.

It felt a little bit easier, though, to look at what he could do right now as well as his longer-term aims. Right now, there was nothing he could do about Arendelle, or Dagur. Arendelle would almost certainly have to wait until spring, although perhaps they could scout out Berserker Island before then. All that he could do about the strange items for Alvin was think about them from time to time; either an answer would come, or it would not.

“Thank you,” he said to Astrid. She tilted her head, though her expression remained neutral. “For being a voice of reason.”

“Too much goes on in that head of yours sometimes,” she replied, tapping him on the nose.

“Even if you’re sometimes a bit of a prick.”

“I’m not being a prick.”

“Oh, really? Alvin’s beard?”

“I told you I’d think on it,” said Astrid, leaning in closer to look at him in mock-innocence. “Anyway, you love it.”

“I like _you_ ,” he said, not quite daring yet to let his correction come any closer to her choice of words. “I put up with the occasional irreverence towards facial hair. And,” he said, dragging the word out as he saw Astrid go to tease him in return, “I acknowledge that in exchange you put up with my mind with too much going on in it, and a great number of other foibles which I am sure leapt to mind as soon as I opened my big mouth.”

Astrid closed her mouth again, but when she pressed her lips together she was definitely smiling. “I’ll accept that,” she said finally.

She cupped his jaw, and just as his brain caught up to thinking that it would indeed be an appropriate moment to kiss her, Astrid got there first. It always spun his head, not just how soft her lips were or how her hand felt against his cheek, but the fact that out of everyone, Astrid would choose to kiss _him_. She was so strong and smart and confident, and fitted in so well in Berk, everything that Hiccup had never felt like he had been.

With a slight press of her fingertips to the back of his neck, Astrid pulled him further towards her, tongue teasing at his lips. How she could think, he had no idea. He chased the shape of her lips, felt her smile, and for a moment the world was clear and simple and nothing else at all mattered but her. He ran his fingers over the sheen of her hair, slightly damp with the rain, and twisted his body so that he could better face her. With a sigh whose softness still astounded him, Astrid ran one hand over Hiccup’s chest, then dropped it down to rest on his thigh as she shifted her weight further into him.

“Ah – ow! Ow, ow…” Hiccup pulled back. “Skirt.”

Astrid looked at him in amazement for a moment, then looked down at the spikes currently digging into Hiccup’s hip. “Oh, right.” She withdrew her hands from him to fold the skirt back on itself, cushioning the spikes on the leather.

“How do you wear that thing?”

“The spikes are on the outside,” she pointed out. With the spikes folded away, she shifted closer to Hiccup, enough that the fold stayed in place without her holding it. Her skin felt very hot against his hip and leg, and he was aware of the scent of her, cut through with rain and metal, in the confined space.

“Hah,” said Hiccup, trying to turn it into a proper laugh but finding himself too breathless. “Funny. Real funny.”

Astrid smiled, all playfulness, and he could not help but kiss her again, catching her lips even as she chuckled. It burred against his lips, and set something hotter in the centre of his chest. When Astrid’s hand came to rest on his thigh again, he almost went to pull away out of instinct, until it occurred to him that, no, he was more than happy to let her leave her hand there. He put a hand on her waist in return, feeling the warmth of her skin through her skirt, and pressed into the kiss as Astrid’s lips became more insistent against his.

Somehow he lost his breath, each kiss a pulse that they both leant into, bodies slowly turning towards each other like flowers following the sun. He could feel Astrid’s breath on his cheek, the soft searching heat of her mouth, her fingers pressing into the muscle of his thigh until it was almost uncomfortable but never quite, because he knew that it came only from wanting to touch him.

Astrid shifted, he missed her lips, and his next kiss pressed just below the corner of her mouth instead. She gasped, and Hiccup hitched away with apologies springing to his lips, but the intensity in Astrid’s eyes stilled him. Still with one hand to his cheek to hold him still, she leant in again, and kissed the corner of his mouth, tantalisingly close and making him feel almost feverish. Her next kiss was to his cheek, softer and less distant, but then she leant closer still to kiss just in front of his ear, at the very top of his jaw, lips lingering and tongue just touching his skin.

If he had been standing, his knees would probably have given way. Hiccup drew his breath in sharply, closing his eyes as a trembling thrill ran through him. Astrid paused for an instant, but she must have noticed it, because she pressed a second kiss there, tilting her head to brush her hair against his temple and pull her lips against his skin.

It was so bizarre. Such a random place, but perhaps it was just that there was no-one else who would think to touch him there, that even he did not bother touching that point except when he was washing his face. It made Astrid’s lips feel stranger on his skin, more unusual and more intimate, and as Astrid mouthed against his skin any sense of coherent thought shattered.

His hand tightened on Astrid’s waist, pulling her more tightly against him; he found himself supporting some of her weight, as well as his, on his other hand. Her skirt pressed uncomfortably between them, he could feel the metal of her headband, but all that he wanted to do was either stay like this or kiss her mouth again, he was not even sure.

Finally, he caught hold of himself enough to draw back, cup her cheeks with both hands, and kiss her one last time on the mouth. It was almost a relief to see that Astrid was breathless as well, her lips shining, eyes flickering from Hiccup’s eyes to his lips and back again.

It occurred to him that he should probably speak at this point, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to say. He didn’t have the words for Astrid; she was so beautiful, even in the absurd conditions and the questionable weather, that he was not sure he could ever do her justice. And he certainly did not have words for the crushing, floating feeling in the centre of his chest.

“Thank you,” he said, finally.

“I daren’t ask for what,” Astrid replied. She peeled away and leant back on her hands, legs stretched out straight in front of her. Hiccup had shifted so that he was almost on his hip to face her, and couldn’t help a stab of reluctance about moving back as well.

He just smiled. “For everything.”

She huffed, not managing to maintain a serious expression. “Go on. I’ll keep a watch on Trader Johann for the rest of the day. Stormfly’s outside,” she added, as Hiccup opened his mouth to ask much the same question. “She’ll wait with me.”

“Stay dry,” he said. He grabbed the scruffy notebook he had bought with him, and pushed to his knees and then to his feet again. His shield stood outside, pattern facing into the rain, and he scooped it up to sling onto his back in one movement. As he did so, Astrid moved to sitting cross-legged in the centre of the shelter, flattening out her skirt again. “And if you need anyone else up here…”

“I’ll have Stormfly call. I’m fine, Hiccup, seriously,” said Astrid. Her voice softened slightly. “The whole Academy is behind you on this. You don’t have to do it all alone.”

That was something else he was still getting used to. With a flick of his hand that was half a salute, he left Astrid to her vigil, and reminded himself that there were always other places that he was needed.

 

 

 

 

 

Johann told them everything that he could, but it was still not much. He had not even been to Outcast Island, could only describe those with whom he had been forced to trade, and specify the island which they had used as their trading point. For his assistance, Stoick assured him that he would be allowed to continue trading as usual, and could trade with the Outcasts so long as he reported to Berk what those trades included; they even provided two small red gemstones, uncut, much to Johann’s bewilderment. Hiccup did not explain that they got them from Meatlug. They did not provide an item that could smell of Hiccup, but did procure an old shirt, scrubbed and cleaned and then used as a bed for one of the Nadder hatchlings for a few weeks so that it could not possibly smell of anything useful.

After that, though, there was no much else that they could do.

The weather did not fully turn, but remained unreliable, with bursts of heavier rain breaking through the lighter showers or cloudy but dry spells. Hiccup knew that every extra day was uncertain, but kept patrols going for as long as he could.

It was Speedifist and the twins who bought back news of movement to the north, and a ship that might have been from the Outcasts. There was an island nearby, with a high cave not accessible from the ground but perfect for dragons, which Hiccup had noted as soon as he saw it could be used as a watchtower.

Stoick did not like the idea. It was unnecessary, he said, and too dangerous both from the increasing cold and from the weapons of the Outcasts. Hiccup pushed, Stoick resisted, and for possibly the first time since the fall of the Red Death they fell into a real, raging argument. Toothless hid in the rafters, Gobber ushered both Anna and Elsa out of the house to some unknown location, and Hiccup found his voice rising almost in beat with his father’s as they went back and forth on whether it was necessary, desirable, or even acceptable for any of the riders to be involved in staking out the location.

“Why are you so determined to argue with your father about this?” said Stoick finally.

Hiccup threw up his hands. “I’m not arguing with my father! I’m arguing with my chief, because I am not a child,” he jabbed a finger at Stoick, not even thinking about doing it, “and would not need my father’s permission to do this. Only the _chief’s_ permission to help _protect_ his island.”

It did not end the argument, but it did seem to break the back of it. By the time that Gobber cautiously looked back in again, Stoick was listing precautions that Hiccup would need to take, most of which Hiccup had been completely planning for in any case. He left it to Hiccup what to tell the parents of the others, which was a way of saying that he expected Hiccup to ask their permission but did not want to start another argument about it.

On the day that they left, it was past noon, and with the days growing shorter it was getting dark by the time that they made landfall on the island that Hiccup had picked out. Snotlout had seen it before, but the others had not, and it took more than a little manoeuvring of people and dragons.

“It’d be a bit tight for all of the dragons,” he called. “Ruff, Tuff, I need you to land Barf and Belch in that cave higher up,” he said, waving them over. “You can climb between them, I’ve tried it. Astrid, Fishlegs, it would be best if you landed there as well.”

There was not much difference between the caves, but the lower one had a larger ledge which would be useful for them when it came to keep watches. Once the others were landing and bickering over who should climb down first – Anna eventually rolled her eyes, dodged around Tuffnut, and started down – Hiccup landed Toothless in the lower cave. There was a ledge, too high for the riders to reach, where he would be able to lie comfortably.

He turned back to the entrance, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Snotlout! Bring Hookfang down here!”

Snotlout would probably not look quite so pleased if he knew that Hookfang was going to be both windbreak and visual shield for their fire. But he was quite sure that Hookfang would not mind, and might even enjoy being the one dragon other than Toothless who got to sit closely to them.

When he glanced back, Elsa was already undoing Toothless’s saddle and tail for him, murmuring away in Northur. Occasionally, Toothless rumbled back. As the others joined him in the cave, looking around and largely seeming satisfied, Hiccup put his hand on Hookfang’s nose to guide him down to a position lying across two-thirds of the mouth of the cave.

Meatlug had been carrying wood for the fire, while Stormfly had food and water, and Barf and Belch had the somewhat less critical items of blankets and leather mats. Not that Hiccup didn’t entirely trust the twins, but Barf and Belch could be easily distracted as well. With everything in place, the cave became quite comfortable, and he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself over the result.

“We’ll have two or three people on active watch at a time,” he said. “You’ll be sitting there, where the fire won’t be affecting your night vision. The fire will be on this side of Hookfang, in this nice depression in the ground,” he tapped it with his good foot, “which will stop the embers rolling away.”

“This,” said Astrid, sounding surprised and appreciative in equal measure, “is not bad.”

He bit back a sarcastic response. After arguing with his father, he had been hoping for a more enthusiastic show of support from everyone, but he supposed that coming out here at all was a pretty powerful statement.

“Good to hear,” he replied. “Because this is probably going to be our base for the next few days, or until we see signs of movement from the Outcasts.”

He just hoped that they weren’t going to drive each other insane before then.

 

 

 

 

 

“All right, all right,” said Snotlout, before they reached the end of the second night, “I’ve had enough dragon facts, and games of guess the dragon, or any other dragon-related game. Please, for the sake of my sanity–”

Astrid snorted in derision from her seat beside Hookfang.

“–can we have _some_ sort of pastime that does not revolve around dragons.”

“Our lives do kind of revolve around dragons,” said Tuffnut, now lying on his back with his legs against the wall in a mirror of the others. He had his ankles crossed, and his hands on his chest.

Hiccup sighed, and rubbed his temple. “Snotlout, you do appreciate that we are here on watch? This is not some sort of holiday.”

“If it was a holiday, I wouldn’t be stuck with you guys,” Snotlout retorted.

“We could do riddles,” said Ruffnut.

Fishlegs looked up from the small wooden slips that he was making into cards of dragon information. “Ruffnut, your riddles are always the same thing.”

“Are not!”

“Well, they always _sound_ like the same thing,” said Astrid, still without looking round and spoiling her night vision. Beside her, Anna did glance round, and winced at the light. She was really going to have to learn, Hiccup thought, but she had been told a couple of times and was slowly starting to remember.

She did have a point; it was remarkable how many things Ruffnut could make sound like genitalia. “No riddles,” said Hiccup, trying not to sound too weary.

“I heard–” began Tuffnut. Ruffnut casually backhanded him in the kneecap.

“We should play the I’m Awesome game,” said Snotlout. Hiccup considered backhanding _him_ in the kneecap, and resisted mostly by dint of being on the far side of the room.

“What’s the I’m Awesome game?” Anna said, this time without looking round.

It might not have been so bad, Hiccup could not help but think, if there had not been all eight of them. Between Astrid getting annoyed with everyone, Anna not knowing half of the Berkian references and jokes, and the twins seemingly determined to wind everyone up for their own amusement at the fallout, he was certainly regretting putting them all in the confined space of a single cave. “It’s a modified game of boasting,” he began.

Snotlout threw the end of a piece of bread at him; Hiccup caught it, but glared. Naturally, he was ignored. “It’s a game,” said Snotlout, “where you take it in turn to say things, and get a point for everything that you’ve done. So for example – and this is not my turn,” he added almost viciously; Hiccup sighed. “If I said, I’m awesome because I’ve ridden a dragon, then everyone here would get a point. But if I said, I’m awesome because I’ve ridden a Monstrous Nightmare, then only I would get a point.”

“And I would, right?” said Anna. “Because I’ve ridden Girl Hookfang.”

“Yes, you would,” said Snotlout. “And I am allowing that correction because you got her name right. Hey, Fishlegs! You’ve always got chalk in that nerd bag of yours.”

There was no way that Hiccup was going to be able to stop this himself. His only remaining hope would be that at least some of the others would refuse to play. Fishlegs glared at Snotlout, but Snotlout made a demanding gesture with one hand and Fishlegs, probably correcting surmising that Snotlout would push and push if he did not get what he wanted immediately, produced a piece of chalk from his saddlebag.

“It’s not a nerd bag,” he said, as Snotlout sprang to his feet to grab the chalk. Snotlout ignored him.

Tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Snotlout fought to write their names on the flattest piece of cave wall that he could find, which was still not particularly flat. The resulting names looked as if they were being viewed through water, but were technically legible. Like much of Berk’s output.

“So, how long does this game go on for?” said Anna.

Traitor.

Snotlout shrugged. “Probably until Hiccup gets Toothless to eat someone. Or until someone runs out of ideas. Usually this is a drinking game, so when someone doesn’t have an idea, you throw stuff at them. Not too much to throw around here.”

“I dunno, we’ve got some axes here,” said Ruffnut.

For a moment, Snotlout looked alarmed, probably until he realised that there were no axes within Ruffnut’s arm-range. Then he cracked his knuckles, and sat almost protectively next to the list of names. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go first. I’m awesome because… I’ve won an eating contest. So that’s a point for me.” He put a line next to his name.

“And one for each of us,” said Tuffnut, gesturing between himself and Ruffnut. “What?” he said, when Snotlout frowned at him. “We have eating contest between the two of us. Sometimes I win, sometimes she wins. Not our fault if you chose a bad question.”

“And a point for Elsa!” Astrid sing-songed. Anna looked at her in surprise. “It was in the spring,” she said, with more than a hint of glee in her words. “Snotlout challenged Elsa to an eating contest, and she beat him.”

“Was pickled fish involved?” said Anna.

It had not been the only food on the plate, but it had been there; Astrid looked surprised at Anna’s guess, though Hiccup suspected that it was not that much of a guess at all. For her part, Elsa continued working on the banner that she was sewing. This one appeared to have the image of a roll of fabric on the front; the one she had made for Gobber the previous Snoggletog had seen some appreciative looks and comments over the last year, and at a guess Elsa was planning on trading this one with someone. Treesprout, perhaps. She was the very picture of innocence.

“Fishlegs,” said Snotlout. “Your turn.”

Fishlegs hesitated for a moment, then sighed heavily. “ _Fine_. I’m awesome because… I can identify over thirty species of dragon by their tracks.”

“That’s not an accomplishment!” said Snotlout.

“I’d like to see you try it.”

Snotlout paused, scowling, then turned and scratched a single line next to Fishlegs’s name. He paused, and glanced over at Hiccup. “And I guess you can probably do that as well.”

“I’ve never had reason to count how many dragon tracks I know,” replied Hiccup honestly.

“You probably can.” A line went next to Hiccup’s name. “There we go. It’s your turn anyway.”

Considering the lack of protests so far, it seemed pretty apparent that the game was going to go ahead whether Hiccup officially allowed it or not. And, if he was honest, there was a slightly petty part of him that wanted to win. Or at least to beat Snotlout. Hiccup folded his arms over his chest. “I’m awesome because I’ve trained a Night Fury,” he said, to groans from the twins. “Points for me and Elsa.” It had been mostly him, but Elsa had been there for the process.

Elsa looked up, glanced at the order in which they were sitting, and set down her sewing for a moment. “It is me next?” Hiccup nodded for her. “I… have been to Arendelle.”

“No, no, no,” said Ruffnut, wagging a finger. “You have to say the whole phrase.”

“I am awesome because I have been to Arendelle?”

Ruffnut clicked her fingers. “ _That’s_ more like it.”

“Elsa, Anna, Astrid and me,” Hiccup supplied, when Snotlout hesitated.

The grin on Ruffnut’s face was honestly not even the first warning sign. The first was probably just that she was Ruffnut, had taken delight in embarrassing questions and dirty songs for years now, and was not above embarrassing herself in order to embarrass others more.

“I’m awesome,” she said, “because I’ve kissed someone. Like, a proper kiss,” she added, “with tongue. None of this on the cheek stuff.”

Hiccup closed his eyes and sighed. It was not just that he could feel himself starting to blush with the knowledge of how he ought to answer the question; it was that he could feel the ghost of Astrid’s lips against his, and he could feel that strange melting pressure in his chest just from that memory.

“Ruffnut,” said Snotlout. “You’re supposed to say something that you’ve done. That’s why it’s called _I’m_ Awesome.”

“Yeah,” she said, grinning.

“Who have _you_ kissed?!”

“Seaweed Frysen.” The only thing more smug than Ruffnut’s tone was her expression. “Midsummer.”

“Please,” said Tuffnut, still upside-down, “let’s not talk about it again. It was bad enough having to hear about it the first time.”

Snotlout still looked a mixture of disbelieving and shocked, but then shook his head and huffed. “Fine. A point for Ruffnut. Anyone else?”

No amount of desire to win could have made Hiccup speak up. He did not even dare look at Astrid, for risk of drawing attention to the pair of them, and instead concentrated on looking at the ceiling as if this whole conversation were below him. Even if he could almost feel Astrid’s lips against the point just in front of his ear.

“Hey, Anna,” Ruffnut called abruptly. “You were engaged, you’ve gotta be getting a point.”

“I – we – we’re engaged!” said Anna. It sounded more defensive than Hiccup would have been expecting, but he supposed that Arendelle did have different mores. Nobody in Berk, probably including Tuffnut, cared who Ruffnut was kissing. But there would be a lot more interested in the Queen of Arendelle’s habits.

Ruffnut turned to Snotlout. “That would be a point for Anna.”

“Ooh, me, me!” said Tuffnut, waving his arms. They brushed back and forth on the floor. “I’m awesome because I’ve drunk dragon milk!”

“Dragon… milk,” said Fishlegs, frowning.

“Yeah.” Tuffnut shrugged. “Terrible Terror. You should have seen,” he started laughing, “how hard it was to milk it, though.”

“I don’t think that dragons produce milk…” Fishlegs continued.

It took a moment for Hiccup to guess at what had actually happened, and it made him feel slightly nauseated. Grimacing, he shook his head. “All right,” he said slowly, “that’s a point for Tuffnut because I don’t feel like arguing, and a refresher course on dragon reproduction when we get back to Berk. Anna,” he continued, surprising himself with the notion that returning to the game would actually be a return to sanity, “your turn.”

“The aim is to get points, right?” said Anna.

“Yup.”

“All right,” she said. “In that case, I’m awesome because I’ve ridden a horse.”

“Oh, that is a good one,” said Ruffnut.

“One point for Anna,” Snotlout said.

“And for Hiccup!” she added. “We both went riding that time… I think it was when I was ten? And you were nine?” she looked over her shoulder to squint at him thoughtfully. It sounded about right; he shrugged, but nodded. “Maybe that’s why you’re such a good dragon rider.”

It was gracious of her, he supposed, that she did not mention that he had fallen off into a bush. And then, in trying to get out of the bush, fallen into the stream that ran through the castle grounds. But maybe it had left him just that little bit more open to the idea of saddles; it was impossible to say now.

“I’m awesome,” said Astrid, not looking round from her watch, “because I’ve won a solo adult event in Thawfest. Me, Fishlegs and Elsa.”

Hiccup hid a chuckle in a cough as Snotlout pulled a face. Snotlout had won plenty of events when they were children taking part, but had not won anything in the spring. By the time that he had put marks next to the appropriate names, he was the only one still on one point, and probably regretting starting the game at all. Hiccup was even more surprised and he and Elsa were drawing for winning at the moment.

“Yeah, well,” Snotlout said. “I’m awesome because…” his eyes panned across the ceiling as he tried to think. “Because I’ve ridden a Monstrous Nightmare.”

He put a mark next to his name and next to Anna’s, and looked at them all defiantly.

“Are we really still doing this?” said Fishlegs. Snotlout glared at him. “ _Fine_. I’m awesome because I’ve never broken a bone.”

Broken noses, fingers and toes were all pretty common on Berk. Snotlout pointed at people in turn for a nod or a shake of their head, and only Astrid and Fishlegs could lay claim to a point. Hiccup offered up visiting the Shivering Shores, which only he had done, and Elsa claimed finding truffles, which immediately descended into an argument about how was best to find truffles. Hiccup was half-expecting that Astrid would also be able to claim a point for that one, but she shook her head without looking round, just raising her voice when she wanted to join in.

The result was that Elsa was winning. Hiccup could guarantee that had not been Snotlout’s plan, and it almost made it worth sitting through the nonsense.

“All right,” said Ruffnut. She cracked her knuckles. “I’m awesome because… I would willingly make out with at least three people in this room.”

An impressively awkward silence descended upon them. Even Tuffnut looked surprised at his sister’s words, and Hiccup was fairly sure that he was not the only one wondering who the three were while simultaneously trying not to wonder who the three were. Snotlout was counting silently to himself, lips moving as his gaze flickered about.

“All right, I’m vetoing that question,” said Hiccup, making a flat, cutting gesture with both hands. “A point away from Ruffnut for breaking the flow of the game, _if_ anyone even wants to continue.” He did hope that there would be answers in the negative.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” said Ruffnut. “Someone back me up on this. Snotlout, I know you totally would,” she added, without a flicker of doubt in her voice. “Fishlegs… maybe. Hiccup,” she snorted. “Elsa?” A waggle of her eyebrows. “Hey, Anna! Are there three people here that you’d make out with?”

“I have a fiancé,” Anna replied, voice ringing with disbelief. And, unless Hiccup was hugely mistaken, some anger as well. She turned to look at Ruffnut. “You know, going to get married, spend the rest of our lives together?”

“Uh, Ruffnut…” said Hiccup.

“Eh, he’s back in Arendelle. You’re here. Why not have a little fun while you are?”

Anna pushed to her feet and made to advance on Ruffnut, her eyes alight and her lips pressed firmly together. With a hiss, Hiccup scrambled to his feet as well, but Astrid had got there first and flung a hand around Anna’s waist to restrain her from Ruffnut. Who was, of all things, having the gall to look surprised.

“Because Hans is my _fiancé_ ,” Anna snapped, “and my true love, and a good enough man that he got _arrested_ by the Silver Priests just because he wouldn’t burn a woman alive. And you want me to just _cheat on him_?” she tried to pull out of Astrid’s grip, and Astrid almost staggered a step to hold her back.

“All right, this game is over right now,” said Hiccup. He quickly manoeuvred himself between Anna and Ruffnut. “And we’re changing watches. Tuffnut, Fishlegs, you’re on watch; Anna, why don’t you come for a flight with me?”

“Uhh,” said Fishlegs, pressing his cards to his chest and looking equal parts confused and concerned. “I thought that the ice seller said it was Prince Hans who got arrested for not burning…”

Whether his trailing off was because Hiccup was glaring at him, because Anna was still breathing hard and clearly tensed for a fight, or because he had just realised the implications of what he had said, it was impossible to say.

For one desperate moment, he hoped that nobody would put it all together. That someone would laugh it off as a coincidence, or just not get the significance at all. Unfortunately, Hiccup found his mind totally blank of what he might actually say to elicit such a response, and just stared at the others waiting for something to happen.

Unfortunately, it did.

“Isn’t _Queen_ Anna of Arendelle sixteen with a fiancé named Hans?” said Snotlout, voice high and strangled but ultimately audible.

“Ha, ha,” said Hiccup; it came out far more like words than actual laughter, and sounded panicked even to his own ears. “Wouldn’t that be a coincidence, since Anna is such a common name in Arendelle–”

“Your Majesty!” declared Ruffnut, and seemed to spring straight to her knees to prostrate herself to Anna.

Well, at least Anna had stopped struggling.

Tuffnut scrambled round to a matching position, kneeling with his arms outstretched. “Your Majesty!” he cried as well, momentarily rearing up before flattening himself again. “Forgive us!”

“All right, that just got weird,” said Anna.

“Oh, Thor,” said Ruffnut, kneeling up. “I’ve been badgering the Queen of Arendelle about her love life.”

“You think that’s bad?” Tuffnut followed her up. “I’ve been talking to her about farts!”

“Forgive us!” Ruffnut said, and down she went again, Tuffnut echoing her words and following her.

“Guys. _Guys_ ,” said Hiccup, voice apparently insistent enough to make them both look up, if not get up. “Look, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, but it’s actually pretty important that the rest of Berk isn’t aware. It’s…” he fumbled for a word. “Politics.”

“There was a political reason for you not telling us that the person you bought back from Arendelle was the _Queen_?” said Snotlout.

“Well, I would think that the word _queen_ would be the clue as to why it’s political,” said Hiccup. He shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. But now that you know, I need you to keep it a secret. This isn’t just something that’s important for Berk, it’s important beyond Berk.” A sigh escaped him, and he rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t mean for this to happen to you guys. This was just supposed to be about flying dragons. But somehow… somehow you’re caught up in the politics of this. And I’m really sorry for that, as well.”

“Wait,” said Tuffnut, pointing slowly towards the ground. “If Anna’s the Queen, then doesn’t that make Elsa a princess?”

“That’s… a bit more complicated,” said Hiccup. “We can explain, but… it’s a bit of a long story. Do we have your word that you will keep this secret?”

He had no idea what he would say if they said no. Luckily, he received a full round of nodding. Astrid agreed to stay on watch, with Elsa beside her, while Hiccup steered Anna back into the cave proper and down to the ground. Toothless leant his head down from his rock shelf and chirped, and Anna’s Terror stuck its nose out from her collar. She stroked its head absent-mindedly.

Hiccup groaned as he sat down. “My father is not going to be happy if he finds out about this…” Still, it was probably better that it had happened out here than back on Berk, where it doubtless would have gotten out of hand in no time at all. “All right, get comfortable. This is… quite the story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only thing I can say in my defence is that I did not come up with the dragon milk thing. That is from the episode _Race to Fireworm Island_ , although Tuffnut does at least suggest feeding it to Hookfang rather than drinking it himself. The show does not state what the 'fireworm milk' actually is but - and I never thought I would say this - semen does sound like the most logical answer.
> 
> Ruffnut's dirty riddles are inspired by the riddles in the [Exeter Book](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/flowers/enigmata.html), which manages to make any number of things sound filthy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes in this chapter for descriptions of badly injured people and dead bodies.
> 
> ...I'll talk about the poetry in the endnotes.

It was the poetry that did it.

“Anna, aiee!” Tuffnut declaimed.

Hiccup flailed and jerked awake, looking round to see that Anna was doing the same only with even more bewilderment. Tuffnut was on one knee beside her sleeping roll, one hand raised as he boomed his words, even as Anna scrambled away from him and almost fell onto Elsa in the process.

“No, sorry, let me try that again.” Tuffnut cleared his throat. Anna gawped at him.

Anna, aiee! |            | Arendelle's Queen  
---|---|---  
Fleeing far |            | Neath falling stars.  
Go, great Queen! |            | Gladly your folk  
Welcome well |            | Your well-earned..." Tuffnut fumbled the words. "Smell."  
  
There was a silence that stretched out in the air, while Anna narrowed her eyes and looked at him long and hard. “What,” she said, finally, slowly, “was that?”

“Did you like it?” said Tuffnut, excitement in his voice. He beamed at her, which was definitely disconcerting when it was barely light outside. “It’s poetry. For you. There are more verses.” He began to clear his throat again, but Anna waved almost frantically for him to stop.

“No, no, I’m good. You – what…” she trailed off as she looked at the piece of wood that had been placed beside her, with a slightly-charred fish on a stick and a large flattish stone with another, smaller stone balanced on top of it. “I am so confused,” Anna muttered.

“Anna,” Hiccup levered himself to a seated position, “meet the twins. Tuff, Ruff, could this not have at least waited a few more hours?”

It was too cloudy for sundials or the tracking of stars to keep track of time, but Hiccup had made sure that they bought plenty of the sort of narrow, tapered candles that would each last for four hours. Each candle would mark out one watch, and there could be no cries of unfairness while they were in use. There was also no excuse for waking people up when they had only been asleep for one watch worth of time.

The twins looked round, eyes wide, then turned beseechingly to Anna. She seemed to be more concerned with not sitting on Elsa, and was shuffling back with an apology and another wary glance at the fish.

“We wanted to provide you with breakfast, your Majesty,” said Ruffnut. As Anna looked straight at her, she bowed from the waist, so low that the ends of her plaits almost brushed the floor.

Anna groaned, and put a hand over her face.

“Anna, why don’t you step out front and get some fresh air,” suggested Hiccup. He pushed his blankets aside with no small regret, pulled up the left leg of his leggings, and set about putting his foot back on. “I’ll talk to these muttonheads.”

With one last withering look at the twins, Anna grabbed her boots, laces tied together, and slung them over her shoulder. Snotlout was sitting out the front, and Ruffnut was supposed to have been on watch with him, but to be quite honest Hiccup could not blame him for not wanting to get involved with the entire farce. Neither could he blame Anna for glancing at Snotlout before turning away and, most likely, climbing to the upper cave with the other dragons.

“All right.” Hiccup finished putting on his leg, shoved his blanket into more of a heap to give himself some room, and stood up. Identical looks of alarm crossed the twins faces as he looked from one to the other of them, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head. “I’m going to keep this really simple, guys. What part of last night’s conversation did you not understand?”

“What… part?” said Tuffnut cautiously.

“Berk not being able to know about this? Secret?” He really hoped that he was going to get some recognition from either of them, but it didn’t seem to be sinking in. “Guys, Anna is still _Anna_. And we need to continue treating her normally. Not with…” he waved a hand to the fish on its wooden platter. “breakfast and poetry.” For a loose definition of poetry, at least.

“Nobody else from Berk is here to see,” Ruffnut said, with a shrug.

“That’s not the point!” he said, narrowly keeping a lid on his temper.  He reminded himself that they had not been there, not experienced the cold and the swords and terrible ‘Trial of Fire’ which hid horror in its name. Even Hiccup could only really infer what Anna and Elsa had gone through in those days. He took a deep breath. “Anna is still one of us, all right? Still a dragon rider. And she deserves to be treated as one of us. I know that you mean well, doing this, but you’re treating her as _different_ from us and singling her out. You want to make her happy, because she’s the Queen?”

He waited for them to nod.

“Well, treat her as you always have,” he said, with a shrug. “As your friend. Because her being our friend is more important than her being Arendelle’s Queen.”

Once he saw realisation starting to dawn, he stepped through and past them, scooping up the fish along the way. Even if Anna did not want it, the Terror probably would. The carefully balanced pebbles clattered to the ground, but at least the twins didn’t seem to object to that part.

They didn’t have royalty on Berk; among Vikings in general, chiefs were maybe more like nobility, but even then it did not get the dynamic quite right. In most places, any man could become chief if he earnt the respect and support of his clan; Berk was unusual in not working in that way, but even then Stoick could not be considered royalty, much less Hiccup. And for all that Anna had said that she wanted to learn Stoick’s way of chiefing, Hiccup had some uncertainty all the same about how such a style would translate back to Arendelle again.

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the fish, though,” he added, as he headed outside as well. Snotlout gave him a cautious wave, which Hiccup acknowledged with a nod but didn’t push. “Ruffnut, back on watch, please. I don’t want us missing anything.”

Anna had not tucked herself around the corner just outside the cave entrance, either, which almost certainly meant that she was in the cave above. Hiccup glanced at the fish in his hand, seriously considered holding it in his mouth, but went for sort of clutching it between his thumb and forefinger instead and using the rest of his hand to climb. It was not too bad, even with the metal foot, and he made it up in no time to see Anna sitting and scratching Stormfly’s chin, muttering vague nothings.

“Hey,” said Hiccup, as he straightened up and brushed some stray grit off the fish. “Sorry about that.”

Anna glanced downwards, then spoke in Arendellen. “This is part of why I didn’t want them to know,” she said. “Besides the fact that I’m not really much of a Queen when I’m banished from my own Kingdom. And wouldn’t even have been the heir if they hadn’t banished Elsa.”

She slumped, head in her hands and elbows on her knees as she sat cross-legged, and stared at the ground.

“I already feel like I’m failing Arendelle by not being there. Having them all talk about me being Queen just makes it worse.”

“Sorry,” said Hiccup, also in Arendellen. He dropped to his knees next to her, offered up the fish, and sure enough saw the Terror’s head pop out of Anna’s shirt. It squirmed out, down to her knee, and Anna moved her elbow so that Hiccup could rest the fish there for it. A faint smile finally reached Anna’s face as she watched the Terror eating.  “Games like that are meant to find things out about each other. I should have stopped them.”

“I shouldn’t have blurted out about Hans,” she said, grimacing. “Does Ruffnut really–”

“Not as much as she’d like to, I’m sure.”

She huffed, gently stroking a finger down the Terror’s back. “I wish I knew what to do about Arendelle.”

“Well, what _not_ to do is get yourself arrested,” said Hiccup. Even what they were not doing was itself a form of action, he supposed, so long as it was keeping Anna from that. “I can say that much.”

“Yeah, I guess that would be a start.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said, reaching over to pat her on the shoulder. In Berkian body language, it probably would have been a punch, but Hiccup suspected that it was for his own sake rather than Anna’s that he refrained from that. “As long as you’re safe, then we’ve got something that the Silver Priests don’t. You. And they can’t keep up their charade forever – Arendelle won’t fall for it.”

He hoped, he desperately hoped. After the isolationism of King Agdarr and Queen Idunn, he was not sure that it would seem so extraordinary for their daughter to be traumatised by a wildling attack and withdraw altogether from public view. But he did not voice those fears; those were the last words that Anna needed to hear. Some of Arendelle, at least, had to remain dubious; there was no way that the people who worked at the castle itself could be fooled.

“Thanks,” she said, softly.

Hiccup patted her shoulder again, and swapped back to Northur. “How about we go for a fly?”

“What happened to no daytime flights in case we get seen?” she looked at him pointedly.

“If you and I can’t break the rules, who can?” he waited for her to smile at his tone, the most nonchalant that he could muster. “Besides, we’ll head south-east, away from Outcast Island. No chance of them spotting us. And we’ll stay low, so we don’t break the horizon, keep Toothless’s dark tail on. Want me to ask the others if anyone would be willing to lend you a dragon?”

“If you would.”

 

 

 

 

 

After the debacle of the morning, Astrid was more than happy to let Anna borrow Stormfly while she caught up on what remained of her sleep. As soon as Toothless was down from his shelf, Astrid was climbing up, muttering about finally getting some peace and quiet.

They only had an hour, before Hiccup and Elsa were supposed to be taking the first watch of the day, but with Toothless and Stormfly that was still more than enough. Anna pretended to roll her eyes when Hiccup made sure she had her safety harness on, but accepted it, and before long they were skimming the water’s surface in the pale damp-aired dawn.

Anna was growing stronger already, he could see that. She could fly upside down and remove her hands from the saddle, holding on with only her legs, although it was short-lived and with a laugh she rolled Stormfly back the right way up again. Hiccup and Toothless dipped above and below them, wheeling around or snapping in his wings to spiral tightly, and Anna tried in return to copy the tight aileron rolls and at first veered off sharply to the right.

It took no time at all for her to be laughing again, happy again, as she took Stormfly down close to the surface.

“Tail thing!” she shouted. Stormfly continued flying, but otherwise ignored her. “Tail… tail – _parlenks_!” It was all that Hiccup could do to restrain his laughter as she bounced her fist on her knee and tried to think of the word. “Tail flick!” Still nothing. “Tail flap? Tail flip!”

Stormfly’s tail arced under her to skim the surface of the water, sending up a spray behind them. At the sound of it, Anna looked over her shoulder, then whooped and punched the air.

Hiccup cut closer, doing his best to avoid the water spray. “Well done.”

“All right, all right, good girl,” said Anna hastily, as Stormfly began to dip in the air from gliding so far. The Nadder’s tail curled back up, and with a couple of beats of her wings she drew upwards again, well clear of the water.

“Getting there!” he added, more teasing in his tone.

Anna gave him a challenging look, then swooped upwards, shifting her posture beautifully to press Stormfly towards the sky. But no matter what the posture was, Hiccup felt a stab of fear; close to the water, they would be harder to spot as movement or colour. Against the sky, they made far more of a target.

“Anna!” he shouted, putting all of the force of his lungs behind it. The sound would carry, that was a danger as well, but he had to get her attention. “Anna, no!”

Anna levelled out above them, but seemed to be paying no attention. Hiccup looked around desperately, but there was no sign of ships even on the horizon, and he really had no choice. With a flick of his left foot and a shift of his weight, he and Toothless bolted after them, so fast the air became a howling force. They reached the same height before Hiccup even ran out of breath, and he shifted Toothless’s tail so that they could hang in place facing Anna.

“Anna!” he snapped. “We have to stay at the water. Come down, quickly.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” she said, words tumbling over themselves. “But, look!”

She pointed in the direction they had been flying, more east than south-east of their position now, and Hiccup looked largely out of instinct. It was only a glance before he set his eyes on Anna again, at which point his brain caught up and he snapped back to looking out over the sea.

There was a ship, close to the horizon; it had not been visible from their lower altitude. But something looked wrong about it even at a distance, and Hiccup pulled out his spyglass to get a better view. In the choppy sea, the boat was bucking and hard to fix on, but he could see ragged sails and a splintered mast on a merchant-broad vessel.

“Oh, Thor,” said Hiccup softly, lowering his spyglass again. He licked his lips, mouth going dry, then tucked the spyglass away. “Anna, well spotted. We’re going to drop down and head closer; the clouds aren’t thick or low enough to give us good cover. But those rock formations,” he said, pointing to their left, “will break up the line of sight. Come on.”

“You’re sure?” Anna said, but the words were dim as Hiccup was already flying, not rushing-fast but with definite haste, keeping his eyes on the distant form of the ship. He did not shout back to her, but heard the dual sound of wings on the air which meant that Stormfly was following,

The boat was drifting, that much was clear. It was rolling dangerously with the waves, and as they drew nearer Hiccup could see that the rudder was torn away as well as the mast. There was no sign of movement, but he took no chances and slowed them as they drew closer.

As they reached the rocks, he raised a hand for Anna to stop, reaching for his spyglass again now that they were still enough for it to be used. Anna yelped as Stormfly stopped, then looked around herself in bewilderment.

“Why did she stop?”

“Why–” Hiccup once again found himself doing a double-take, this time in Anna’s direction. “The hand,” he said, repeating in the gesture. “We use it to mean stop.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” She patted Stormfly on the shoulder again. “Good girl.”

Hiccup looked through the spyglass again; he thought that he could see a figure lying on the deck, entirely still. He chewed gently on the inside of his lip, trying to decide whether he should fetch anyone else before going near.

“Did you bring a waterskin?” he asked Anna. She nodded. “Here, I’ll do you a swap.” Taking the water, he passed across the spyglass, coming to a firmer decision from the moment that he spoke. “I’m going to go in – if I wave you in, follow me. If Toothless fires, go back and get the others. You might need to be firm with Stormfly to stop her from trying to come and help,” he added, with a bit more of a frown. Stormfly’s loyalty could be a great thing, but if she dove in then it would not help now. “Use Astrid’s name. That should help. You got it?”

“Yes,” said Anna, although she still sounded a little uncertain. He saw her hands tighten around the spyglass, but he knew that he had to trust her. Catching her eyes, he waited for the first flush of panic to fade, and nodded one more time before turning towards the stricken vessel.

It was only a karve, and a small one at that. There were no shields on the gunwhales, and the mast was broken, with no sign of the sails. Smashed wood littered the deck, along with arrowheads, and not one but two slumped figures. Hiccup swallowed as he drew closer, neither of the figures even stirring as Toothless’s shadow fell over the small boat.

The hull looked sound, despite the puddles in its lowest parts, but Hiccup still hesitated before bringing Toothless in to land. There were significant stains of dried blood underneath both of the men, and Toothless felt tense, flaps pushed back but flicking.

“Come on, bud,” he said, so quietly it might have been more for himself. He steered Toothless in to land, paused to see whether there would be any response, then slid out of the saddle. The boat rocked dangerously underneath them, and another wave crested over the gunwhales; Hiccup grabbed at Toothless’s saddle to remain upright even as Toothless growled low in his throat. “No, Toothless.”

Neither of the men moved. Hiccup kept one hand at the hilt of his knife as he stepped over to the one closest, but as he crouched down he realised that what he had taken for just dark hair was hair matted with blood and brain, the back of the skull caved in and small fragments of bone stained dark as well. Hiccup swallowed bile, and turned quickly to the other man, whose hair was lighter in colour and bloodied only where it reached to the deck. The cheek that was turned upwards, as well as the exposed skin of his forearms, was burnt and peeling from the salt and the autumn sun, and he seemed wholly still.

The ship smelt of blood, rather than death, but in the cold and the open air that did not mean much. Hiccup hunkered down carefully beside the second man, but as the ship lurched a second time he had to grab the gunwhale to avoid from toppling over into the bloody water. Removing his hand from the hilt of his knife, Hiccup reached in cautiously towards the man’s face, putting the back of his hand towards the man’s nose and mouth.

For a moment, it was impossible to tell, but then he thought that he felt the movement of air, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Hiccup drew his knife and quickly put the blade in front of the man’s face; after a few seconds, he caught the faint flush of condensation.

“He’s alive,” breathed Hiccup. He looked round, almost frantically, to Toothless still watching. “Toothless,” he pointed to the sky. “Plasma blast!”

There was no hesitation at all before Toothless fired, and the fire and sound lit up the sky above them.

 

 

 

 

 

The others did not even make a pretence of staying close to the water’s surface as they made their way back. Hiccup had Toothless spread his wings to provide a modicum of shade for the man that still lived, and found a mostly-intact bucket to bail out the worst of the water that had settled in the hollows of the hull. From time to time, he returned to check the man’s breathing, but mostly poked around what remained of the ship.

There was no sign of the sail, only one remaining good rope to be seen, and nothing that looked like cargo. Some partial hoops from barrels and curved pieces of wood remained, but nothing that let him identify what this boat had been carrying, or where its people were from. He tied off the good rope around the figurehead of the ship, not quite sure what knot he was using but sure that it was one he had been taught along the way, and coiled the rest of it just by the prow.

When he saw the others, he felt a wave of relief, and straightened up to wave them in. Stormfly came streaking ahead of the others, and Hiccup half-wished that he had communicated somewhat more with Anna, as he caught the glint of metal in Astrid’s hand.

“Astrid!” he hollered, cupping both hands around his mouth and putting as much force as he could behind it. If the man still alive had not stirred to Toothless growling or Hiccup cursing as another wave soaked him through, he was almost certainly not going to spring awake at this. “Axe down!”

At the very least, she did not jump straight onto the ship with a battlecry, although she came to a sharp halt. Anna was sitting behind her, clinging grimly to the saddle.

“What in Thor’s name happened here?” Astrid shouted back, looking at the boat in horror.

“I don’t know!” He saw her shift her weight, as if about to come in to land, and waved her back. “No, no! I don’t know how much this boat will handle!”

He spared a glance for the unconscious man, but another few minutes should not make a difference. With a sigh, Hiccup staggered over to Toothless and climbed into the saddle again, pulling them back up. They had plenty of practice at communicating with each other while in the air.

“No idea what happened,” he shouted back, as the others caught up with Astrid. “One dead, one just about alive. We need to get him back to Berk.”

“Why?” said Snotlout. “He could be Berserker for all we know.”

“Hard to know if he’s dead,” Hiccup snapped. Snotlout did have a point; taking anybody back to Berk was a risk, especially since any consciousness from the man and he would see the dragons around him. But the narrowness of the risk had to be weighed against the chance that the man’s life could still be saved, and the certainty that he would die if they did not step in. “And he could be anyone.”

“So, what?” said Fishlegs. “We fly him back?”

Hiccup shook his head. “Injuries are too bad. There’s no sails, but there’s still rope. Ruff, Tuff, Barf and Belch should be strong enough to tow the boat back, right?”

He knew that it was a shameless appeal to their vanity, but was relieved all the same when the twins looked at each other, surprised, and then at the boat before nodding.

“Good. I’m staying on the boat; Elsa, I need you with me. Astrid, I’ll need you to fly with Toothless;” he was leery of having a dragon on the boat, both for Barf and Belch’s sake and for the integrity of the boat once it started moving. “You all right with Anna taking Stormfly? Fishlegs, Snotlout, I need you to head back and break camp; Hookfang and Meatlug should be strong enough to carry everything between them.”

“You had a while on the boat to plan that, huh?” said Astrid. Although she had lowered her axe, it remained in her hand, and she still looked disapproving.

He shrugged. “Just a little.”

With a sigh, she returned her axe to her back, Anna leaning out of the way, then directed Stormfly closer to the boat so that she could drop down to its deck. A particularly rough wave made even her stagger a step, and she grabbed at the mast to stay upright. Her eyes took in the two men, and she nodded to the one whose head was not caved in.

“I’m guessing that’s the living one,” she said dryly. She unclasped her cloak, and threw it in Hiccup’s direction as he came down to land as well. He scrambled to catch it from the air. “Here. Cover up the other one.”

“I’ll get you a replacement,” he said, with a nod to the cloak. Astrid seemed to ignore his words as she bent down and fought with the stirrup on Toothless’s saddle. “Hang – hang on.” He stepped over, crouched down beside her, and undid the part of the stirrup that fitted to his foot, freeing up the base with its straps that could be used for a normal boot. “Astrid,” he added more quietly, putting a hand to her knee before she could get up again. “What is it? You seem… unsettled.”

She sighed. “We found a dead body. That _doesn’t_ unsettle you?”

Fair point. He squeezed her knee, earning a surprised glance, then let go again. “Sorry. But maybe we can help.”

“Yeah.” Astrid got to her feet, and stroked the crook of Toothless’s shoulder and wing before getting into the saddle. For a moment, he thought that she would take off immediately, but she hesitated with her foot not quite in the stirrup, and looked at him with an intensity that could have looked straight through him instead. “Be careful.”

“Worst happens, we’ll jump into the sea, you guys can pick us up,” he replied, completely serious. From the way that Astrid looked at him, he wasn’t sure that intention made it across. “Really, Astrid. We have an instant escape.”

“Fine,” she said, although it was so soft that he more read her lips than actually heard the words. Hiccup stepped away as she opened up Toothless’s tail and he spread his wings. For a moment, Toothless looked over to Hiccup, with a low questioning chirp, and only once Hiccup nodded did he spring back into the air once again.

The boat rocked with the force of a dragon taking off, but it was still not as bad as the waves themselves. With Astrid in the air, there was enough room for Fishlegs to steer Meatlug closer, Elsa with him. Even after more than a year, it seemed that she preferred the calmest of the dragons. Fishlegs looked more nervous than Elsa did as he steered Meatlug as close to the centre of the ship, and as low, as possible, but finally she swung her legs round, said something to Fishlegs that was carried away by the wind, and dropped down to the deck.

She landed sure-footed, despite the bloody water and the wrecked timbers, and as the ship bucked again even managed to step forward and stop Hiccup from pitching over. He could already feel the roil of seasickness in his gut as well as the sickness over the whole situation; this was going to be a long trip back.

“You said you needed me here?” said Elsa.

“Yeah,” replied Hiccup, with a sigh. “One moment, though.” He turned back to the riders in the air, cupped his hands around his mouth, and held his stance as best he could. “Snotlout, Fishlegs, get going!” Once they were in the air, he turned back to Elsa. “He’s got multiple injuries. I think the cold has kept him alive this long. But if you’re willing to freeze his wounds, I think that would help. And I would appreciate it.”

He saw the flicker of hesitation, and understood; this man was not Berkian, and willingly using her magic for an outsider had to be another matter than using it for or in front of the rest of them. But then Elsa nodded, and Hiccup felt a rush of relief.

“Thank you. _Thank you_. Just let me get this to the twins,” he said, with a gesture to the rope. Elsa nodded, then reached out her hand.

“Give me the cloak. I will cover the other one.”

She had a point. It was not the best throw that had ever been achieved, but Hiccup managed to get the end of the rope within grabbing distance of Belch, who caught it in his mouth and offered it to Ruffnut. The twins set about arguing about how best to secure the rope for Barf and Belch to pull, and Hiccup left them to it, fairly certain that either they would figure something out or Astrid would chivvy them into shape.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said to Elsa, gesturing to the blood and water around them as he knelt down next to the still-breathing man. She joined him, still wary.

Hiccup drew his knife and slit the man’s shirt up the back, exposing the blood-streaked skin beneath. The sight made him waver, and he hesitated, all too aware of the blade in his hand and the uneven deck making his stomach and his head both sway. The man had multiple cuts, some pulling open, some scabbed over with dirt but more than one having ripped when he pulled the shirt away. They seeped blood again. Clenching his right hand to a fist, Hiccup cut the shirt across the shoulders as well, so it could be completely pushed aside, and drew back again.

It was impossible to read the expression on Elsa’s face. He was sure that there was sadness there, but it was tempered with other things as well. Leaning carefully on the cleanest parts of the deck, she leant over and touched the skin just beside the first of the wounds. Ice crawled from her fingertips to cover it, still blood-red, and both of them paused and looked at the man as the wound was sealed. He did not respond.

The boat jerked forwards, and Hiccup stabbed his knife into one of the beams across the boat in an attempt to keep his balance. But a look over his shoulder confirmed that it was just the twins finally getting the boat moving, and a wash of air clear enough to overcome the scent of blood was welcome as well. Hopefully it would not take them too long, at a Zippleback’s pace, to make it back to Berk.

“I think we’re all right,” said Hiccup.

Elsa did not answer, but nodded, and set about freezing the rest of the injuries to the man’s back. One, deep and dark, was at the level of his guts, but there was nothing that they could do to any of them until they got back to Berk. This was something far beyond even a broken ankle.

“Done,” she said quietly, as her ice crawled over the last shallow cut along the man’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” said Hiccup, and wished that he could say it with every breath. He sheathed his knife, and wiped his hands. “Come on, we need to turn him over.”

It was hard to get to his feet in the rocking boat, and a glance around made him suspect that they were going faster than any longboat would normally travel. But that was a good thing right now, as well. He managed to move so that he could shift the man’s legs to a position that would let them roll him better, then again so that they could both get their hands beneath him and roll the man onto his back and out of what remained of his shirt.

It seemed easier than Hiccup had feared; perhaps that was having both of them, perhaps just the fear still thrumming under Hiccup’s skin that gave more strength to his arms. A grunt left the man as he hit his back, and they both froze for a moment, but he continued in his unconsciousness.

“I think it’s just the air, being knocked out of him,” said Hiccup.

Elsa nodded, although her hands remained drawn back for a moment until with a deep breath she bent over the man again. He had fewer wounds on his front, shallower, slashes that hardly reached muscle apart from one wound over his sternum that had a gleam of white in its depths, and a deep dark hole in his gut. That was the one that worried Hiccup the most, but he did not say as such to Elsa as she moved from wound to wound, sealing them with ice again.

There was blood on the man’s leggings as well, but from the pattern it made Hiccup was pretty sure that it was just from being face-down in the pool of blood. He guided Elsa to cuts on the man’s forearms – defensive wounds, but clearly his defence had not been enough. Elsa seemed focused on her task, and Hiccup wished that he could match the concentration in her eyes, but all that he could do was wonder what had happened here.

Hiccup’s eyes trailed down the man’s torso, still marked with watery blood and now with ice like bright raised scars on his skin. The blood loss had made him pale beneath a summer’s tan, but if he was still alive now then hopefully, hopefully, the blood loss alone would not kill him.

Light glinted on the man’s belt buckle, and Hiccup’s eyes were drawn towards it. It was a dullish white metal, looking a little like a dragon but flatter-faced and with a more detailed fringe than any that Hiccup had seen. Once, the eyes had clearly been jewels, but now one was hollow and the other only had a tiny chip left, its colour difficult to see beneath grime and blood.

Dragon sigils were not uncommon. They were most common among chiefs and leaders, certainly, linked to the island that the person ruled, but it was not unheard of for others to wear dragons about their person in various ways. The Night Fury of his vest seemed to weigh against his back a little more. But there was something about the buckle that made Hiccup feel uneasy, something almost familiar about it, and his gaze lingered on the empty eye-sockets.

The boat bucked, one of the twins shouted something that might have been an apology but had a good chance of not being as well, and Elsa grabbed at the gunwhale for support. She looked back over her shoulder, and a pained look crossed her face; Hiccup followed her gaze to see that the body of the man further towards the stern had been jostled and partially uncovered again by the actions of the boat.

He went to get to his feet, but Elsa stood up first. “I will deal with it,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Hiccup, but Elsa was already picking her way back, stepping over each of the beams in turn. He looked back to the buckle again, still feeling that prickling uneasiness, then in a rush made his decision and undid the man’s belt. The buckle came away easily, the leather of the belt damp and half-rotting with blood and seawater, and Hiccup stuffed it into the pouch at his belt with the spyglass before tying the two ends of the belt in a knot instead.

He looked back to Elsa, to see her just tucking the cloak into place over the dead man and brushing off her hands. Hopefully the rest of the trip back to Berk would now be quieter. There were too many mysteries already for a boat this small, and he did not want to stumble across more of them now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Tuffnut. You tried. This is a genuine Viking poetry style, albeit one done quite badly. It's called "Kviðuháttr" – alternating three and four syllables with two stresses in each line; the lines with three syllables have two alliterations, linking to a third in the four-syllable lines. Rhymes are additional to structure, and are Tuff trying to show off.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note on this chapter for a character with significant TBI/Traumatic Brain Injury, and resultant symptoms.

It was never easy to read Gothi’s moods, and this time was no different. The man who was still alive was taken inside to be tended to, and Hiccup could not tell what Gothi thought the outcome might be.  For now, only the boat and the dead man had been left for Stoick to be shown, and there was precious little that could be found out from them.

Gobber joined them, in case there was any metalwork found, but apart from the few arrowheads wedged in the wood of the deck there was nothing. Using his knife, Hiccup dug a couple out, but Gobber said that there was nothing particularly recognisable about them. Other than that, the ship looked to have been stripped; there was no metal, little rope, even the sail having been taken. The ship was of the size that could be used for fishing or trading, but there was no sign of either having taken place.

The ship had been attacked, gutted, its sailors killed or left for dead. There might have been more than two men, originally; that part was not clear. The main questions were where the sailors hailed from, and who the attackers had been, but it seemed that was not something that could be answered from the boat alone.

They waited, at first, to see if the injured man would live. If not, there would be two bodies in the boat when it sailed for the last time. The dead man was in the waiting cave, where the cold never left.

Most frustrating, though, was that there was nothing else they could do. With the finding of the ship, Hiccup could only agree with Stoick’s decision that the patrols by stopped, and all that they could do was wait for Gothi’s response.

He thanked each of the other riders, separately, for staying calm and acting appropriately that day. Once they were back, even Astrid seemed less on-edge than before.

All that it left him was the belt buckle. He could not say why he had taken it, could not say what it was that was nudging in the back of his mind and asking for his attention, but there was something about it that he could not shake. The strange, flat-faced dragon with its fringe. He cleaned up the buckle as best he could, late at night when insomnia nipped at his heel again, but it only made the dragon look stranger with one shining silver hollow like an empty eye-socket, and one chip of red like a smear of blood.

He was working, with Fishlegs, on the new Book of Dragons scattered across his bedroom floor. This time, they were tidying and transcribing the notes on Hackatoos which Hallow had gathered together for him from her time travelling farther east before she settled on Berk. Hiccup read them aloud to Fishlegs, who was arranging the writing on the page to leave space for the drawings which Hiccup eventually wanted to add.

“Do you think there are other sorts of dragons that we could get information on?” said Fishlegs. Hiccup looked up from the notes to see him looking at the depths of pages they had left. “We’ve got plenty of room.”

“We’ve got Skrills in,” said Hiccup. “Scauldrons and Thunderdrums from Brynnhild and some of her fishermen…”

He trailed off, drumming his fingers on the table. Nobody was going to talk to them about Stormcutters, although Hiccup knew that at least one had been seen around Berk before. There had to be at least some information about them, size and appearance and fire, and through comparison with the other dragons it might have been possible to tell something more about it.

“No-one will talk about Stormcutters,” he said quietly. Fishlegs looked up from his writing, but it was clear in his eyes that he did not know what to say. Hiccup rubbed his face with the heel of the hand that did not have ink on it, then paused. “No, wait. Someone will.”

It was fitting, in a way. Hiccup put aside the papers in his lap and got to his feet, even as Fishlegs started to say something that might have been intended as a question. Even Toothless, from across the room, lifted his head and chirped. Hiccup headed downstairs, past Anna and Elsa who were now working on copying the coif which Hiccup had managed to borrow for a few days, and straight into his father’s bedroom.

Stoick was out, as was Gobber; that was the only reason that Hiccup knew he would get away with this. The first time that he had found his mother’s journals had been chance, idle curiosity one winter leaving him poking about the house, but after that he had gone back deliberately, rarely daring to borrow the journal for longer than his father was out of the house. He never knew when Stoick would look in the small chest of Valka’s belongings.

It was hidden right in the corner of the room, under the eaves. Perhaps where it would not be disturbed. Strangely, it had become rarer since the Red Death for Hiccup to look at these journals, even though he had admitted to Stoick that he knew about them. Then again, he had his helmet now for when he needed to feel closer to his mother. Now, Hiccup went straight to the chest, opened it, and lifted out the three journals inside.

Anna and Elsa looked at him curiously as he went back up the stairs, journals in hand, but did not interrupt. Hiccup shuffled the order of them as he reached the top, reaching for the oldest, the first, of them.

“Are you all right?” said Fishlegs. He had put his ink aside and was wiping his hands clean.

“Yeah,” Hiccup replied. “I just… thought of something.” With everything that had happened, he had never actually shown Fishlegs his mother’s journals. He sat down cross-legged again, journals in his lap, and Fishlegs looked over curiously. “I should you my journal, right? Of the dragon attacks?” He gestured with one of the journals. “I got the idea from my mother.”

“Oh…”

“It’s all right,” he said, opening up the first one. “Here. She started it when her family left Berk. And she opens it,” he turned it so that Fishlegs could see the first page, “with a list of the dragons that she had seen on Berk. I think they were originally about what different dragons she saw,” he said. “But the third one, it’s all back on Berk, so that’s got the details about years of dragon attacks here.”

“And there are Stormcutters on the list,” said Fishlegs.

“Yeah. Which makes that thirty years ago, at least, Stormcutters came to Berk.” However many there were, there had been ones killed. And before too long, no more had come to their shores. Hiccup put the first journal aside, and hesitated on the second; no, he was fairly sure there was nothing about Stormcutters there. He set that one aside as well, and started flicking through the third, scanning the cramped writing for anything about them. “Then twenty years ago, we still have records of them, but they’re infrequent compared to the other dragons.”

Fishlegs picked up the second journal, as carefully as he would handle a hatchling, and glanced at a couple of the pages.

“My mother used to keep records of how many days it was between sightings… just let me see if I can find one of the pages where Stormcutters are mentioned.” He glanced over at Fishlegs, who was picking at a particularly thick page. “What’s that?”

“This looks like two pages have been… fused together somehow. It’s a lot thicker than the others,” said Fishlegs.

Putting aside the third journal, Hiccup gestured for the one in question, and when Fishlegs handed the book over had to admit that he was right. The page was a lot thicker. Hiccup had always put it down to variable parchment quality, but now something itched in the back of his mind. He clicked his tongue, and Toothless got to his feet, stretched, and padded over.

“Bud, give me a light,” said Hiccup. He opened his mouth and put all of his fingertips, pressed together, just in front of it. How that had become their sign, he did not know, but Toothless obediently opened his mouth and prepared as if he were going to fire, bright light in the back of his throat. Hiccup raised the journal to put the page in front of it, and drew in his breath sharply as he saw the ghosts of drawings in between, a page-sized picture of a dragon. “You’re right,” he said to Fishlegs.

Lowering it, he patted Toothless’s cheek in thanks. His hands were shaking slightly, and that caught him by surprise as well; then again, he had not imagined that there would be another fragment of his mother’s story to find, after all these years. He ran his nail around the edge of the page, trying to find any break, but there was nothing, no edge that he could find. Sighing, Hiccup drew his knife, then caught himself and stopped short.

It had been nearly fifteen years, and Stoick had never seen this page either. Had he poured over every line, looking for something else of Valka in there? When Hiccup had first done it, he had felt as if he were the only one in the world who might have done so, but with time had come rather more awareness of… well, any number of things. Perhaps he should wait, and show his father this.

He held up the journal page again, this time to the lamp by which they had been working; though it was harder to see the lines of the drawing between, it was still faintly there. The vague outline of a dragon with a broad face, forward-facing eyes, and tusk-like projections coming down from either side of its mouth.

The face made him pause. He tried to look around the upper part of the page, where there were shadows that might – might just – have been a fringe of spines. Hiccup’s throat went dry, even as he swallowed compulsively, and his decision was made.

He used his knife on the edge of the parchment, but it seemed to have fused together completely, and even trying to slice the surface near the edge was not possible. Eventually, with some reluctance, Hiccup moved a short distance away from the edge, picking a place between two lines of writing, and delicately cut through one of the pieces of parchment.

Fishlegs gasped, but Hiccup refused to let his concentration waver. He cut a slit all the way across the page, perhaps an inch from the top, and then used his nail to run as close to the edge as possible. How the parchment had been sealed together, he had no idea, but it had to be deliberate to go so perfectly around the edge. Whatever this was, it had been important to his mother.

Which made it important now.

Hiccup let his knife follow down the seam of fused and unfused parchment, wincing when it cut through the end of a couple of lines along the way but unable to go any closer to the edge. Along the bottom, he repeated the same technique, this time going between two lines of writing again. The page would still be legible, just smaller than its fellows.

It was only slowly, though, that he set the knife aside. So absurd – one page, one drawing, but it felt unbearably momentous. He licked his lips, and finally peeled back one sheet of parchment to reveal the drawing that had been so hidden.

It was a dragon. Somehow it gave the impression of immensity without any need for scale, face squarish with upward-slanting brows, with enormous tusks projecting on either side. Spines studded its face, giving way to flaps that formed a crown atop its head, and behind there was only a faint suggestion of a back and of wings, where his mother had sketched them in.

His mother. He wanted to linger on the image, to imagine her hand. From where it was in the journal, she would have been twelve or thirteen when it was drawn, only a child.

There was only one word written on the page, between the dragon’s tusks.

“Bewilderbeast,” said Hiccup softly.

His fingers traced the lines of the dragon’s face, as if the drawing were brand new. For all that he ached to linger on the image, though, he knew now what had been nagging at him from the moment that he saw its shadow. The creature in the drawing – the Bewilderbeast, he supposed – was the same one that was on the buckle he had taken from the man.

The discovery tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Bewilderbeast?” Fishlegs echoed. “I’ve… never heard of that before.”

Hiccup’s eyes remained fixed on the dragon. “Neither have I,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

It was Gobber that he asked. He checked first, to make sure that the fire was still lit in the smithy, then excused himself to Anna and Elsa in order to go down there. He knew that he had not been acting right since Fishlegs had left, but he could not bring himself to show them what he had found. Frankly, he was more than a little nervous about asking Gobber, but he knew that he was more likely to receive an answer there than from Stoick.

Gobber was humming to himself in the smithy, more tuneless notes than the actual songs he sang when he was happy about something, and put aside the knife that he was sharpening when he saw Hiccup in the doorway.

“What’s up, lad?” said Gobber.

“You know,” said Hiccup, wagging a finger, “you can read me entirely too well, sometimes.”

“Aye.” Gobber made sure that his whetstone had completely stilled. “And I can see when you’re thinking about changing the subject, as well. Spit it out.”

With a sheepish nod, Hiccup crossed to the scarred workbench and put down his mother’s journal. Gobber smile faded at the sight of it, and he set about undoing his hook and setting it aside without even bothering to replace it.

“You know about these,” said Hiccup, without preamble.

“Aye, but they don’t usually leave the house.”

“No,” he admitted. He opened up the journal to the extra page that Fishlegs had found, and Gobber carefully reached over to look at the way the page had been slit. “And before you ask, yes, I did that as well. The pages were… bonded together, with something, I have no idea what could make parchment do that. But between them…”

He spread the page open again, to reveal the picture beneath, and kept his eyes on Gobber. It was not only Gobber who had some experience in reading facial expressions, and though it was only a moment of surprise that flashed across Gobber’s face, there was no way that Hiccup was going to miss it.

“You’ve seen this before,” said Hiccup.

Gobber dragged in air between his teeth. “Yes,” he answered after a moment. “Or something like it, at least. For your mother’s twentieth birthday, your father had me work on a belt buckle she had designed. A dragon one, to go with his.” Gobber used his hand to hold the page open himself, and Hiccup let go of the journal. “I think he was expecting a Nightmare to go with his, maybe some other dragon that she’d taken a fancy to. Instead, she drew something that looked a lot like this.”

“A belt buckle?” said Hiccup. He felt as if there were a weight crushing down on his sternum, flat and iron-heavy, and hoped desperately that it did not show in his eyes or his voice. But Gobber’s thoughts were still far away, eyes lingering on the drawing rather than returning to Hiccup, and Hiccup hoped that he was safe from being noticed again.

“Aye. Steel. She wanted the eyes blue, but we didn’t have even blue glass in those days;” it would have been during some of the worst of the dragon attacks, Hiccup realised. “We used red instead. But she was always wearing it.”

Hiccup swallowed. “Does my father… have it, still?”

“No,” said Gobber. He didn’t have to explain further. There was only one way that something so precious would have been lost. Finally, he looked away from the page, and Hiccup quickly fastened his eyes upon it again. Even upside down, there was something haunting about the dragon. But it was impossible to appreciate this new slip of information, this new link, when he knew that he had hidden among his things a buckle that carried the face of this Bewilderbeast.

“Did she tell you the name?”

Gobber shook his head. “Didn’t know she knew it. She just said it was something that she thought she saw once.”

He wanted to be happy about it. Wanted to be able to savour it. And there was a flicker of anger in him that he couldn’t, not when it had only created more questions than it had answered. “Thank you, Gobber,” he said, all the same, because Gobber had given him answers that he desperately needed. “And yes, I will tell my father about this. And admit that it was me who cut the page open,” he added.

With a faint, final chuckle, Gobber patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that one. But to see this… I think he’ll find it worth it, as well.”

The only part that Hiccup could not yet decide was whether to show his father the buckle as well.

 

 

 

 

 

He did not get the chance. He had barely returned home, putting the journal in his room for the time being, when there was a knock on the door and Gustav Larsson waiting outside. Anna looked at him in bewilderment, but Hiccup ran down the stairs and almost bumped into Gustav on the doorstep.

“What is it?”

“Gothi’s sent for you,” said Gustav. “Your father’s already there.”

“He’s probably awake,” Hiccup said to Anna and Elsa, without needing to add that it was the man from the boat he was talking about.

Elsa was the first to catch on, nodding. “You should go.”

He patted Gustav on the shoulder in passing; the boy had probably just been grabbed because he was nearby, and sent to the house in the hopes that Hiccup would be there. Finding people quickly was at least one advantage of Berk.

The man had been installed in a spare room of a house volunteered for the purpose, while Gothi came down from her spire for a several days. His wounds were apparently old enough to have become infected, and she had found bruising across his scalp when she had cut his matted hair short. It was likely that he had been struck about the head. The door to the house was closed, but Hiccup let himself in, slowing and quieting his steps as he approached the back room.

His father’s voice drifted out. “Berk,” said Stoick. “You are in Berk.”

“Berk?” the man said the word as if he had never heard it.

Hiccup entered the room to see the man lying in bed, his father seated to one side, and Gothi standing back and watching everything with a critical eye. He slipped over to stand near to Gothi, who only spared him a glance.

The man’s head tracked left, away from Stoick, then he pulled it back round again. “Berk,” he said again. “Near Corona.”

“Near Arendelle,” said Stoick, calmly and not unkindly. The man nodded, the movement jerky. “We found you at sea. What’s your name?”

The man licked his lips. “Need boat,” he said after a moment. His head tracked left again. “Need boat.”

Stoick exchanged a glance with Gothi, but she shook her head minutely. It didn’t take medical knowledge to know that it was a bad sign, though. Shifting in his chair, Stoick kept his body language soft, non-threatening; Hiccup recognised that, as well.

“Your boat is safe in our harbour. Do you remember your name?”

Another track of his eyes to the left, then the man closed his eyes for a second, his breathing become visibly slower and deeper. When he opened his eyes, they focussed better on Stoick. “Name,” he said. “Venomspur.”

“Venomspur,” said Stoick. It certainly sounded reasonable as a name; though there were more islands that followed the old naming patterns than didn’t, it still narrowed it down some way that he had the sort of name that was meant to keep luck in the cradle. “Do you know what happened?”

They waited for Venomspur to think, watching the frown spread across his face. His chin twitched to the left, but did not turn completely this time. “Boat… men. Attack.” The words seemed to come out individually, with no structure to tie them all together. “Attack.”

Gothi nudged Hiccup with her elbow, then traced a pattern on the floor with her staff. With no calfskin or sand, it was nothing more than vague shapes, and he looked at her blankly. She rolled her eyes, made a more emphatic gesture, and pointed to Venomspur, who was still frowning, lips moving but no words coming out.

“Dad,” said Hiccup, as the pieces fell into place. “Gothi says… perhaps he can draw. If he can’t speak.”

There were stranger ideas. Berk was used to any number of injuries because of dragons, even if it was rarer that people survived after blows to the head. Bucket was an exception, rather than a rule, and he was largely fine when it came to communicating. But letting someone draw instead of speaking was hardly the oddest thing that had been done on Berk.

As usual, Hiccup had a stray piece of parchment and a slip of charcoal about his person, and Stoick helped Venomspur to sit up in the bed, with Gothi watching on and occasionally pointing and glaring in a way that actually managed to be communication when she did it. They gave Venomspur the parchment, and he struggled for a moment to hold the charcoal, shifting it in his fingers like an unfamiliar beast. But then he started to sketch something out, and his frown lessened.

Hiccup gave Gothi a grateful smile, which she acknowledged with a tilt of her head. The drawing that emerged was not an artistic masterpiece, but it was understandable enough, a human head with a broad sweep of a beard, wearing a helmet with one large set of horns coming from the side and then a series of smaller ones within it.

It was not the insignia of an island, not an official symbol. But this time, it was more than easy to know what it meant, and from the look in Stoick’s eyes he had seen it as clearly as had Hiccup.

“Thank you,” said Stoick levelly, putting his hand on the blankets beside Venomspur.

Venomspur looked up, as if he was about to speak, then his eyes tracked quickly to the left and his head turned with it. His left hand started jerking, then his arm from his elbow, and Stoick rose from his chair even as Gothi hurried forwards. She made a dismissive gesture with one hand, and Hiccup knew well enough to head towards the door before his father even put a hand to his back to hurry him out of the room.

Without a word, Stoick closed the door behind him, and led Hiccup all the way out of the house to an evening that seemed shockingly cold after the warm indoors.

“Well,” said Hiccup, “that had mixed results.”

“But we know who it was that attacked the ship,” said Stoick. He still had the piece of parchment in his hand, and looked at it by the distant fires from other doorways. Although only a rough shape, the helmet was definitely right, the broad nose and almost semi-circular sweep of a beard combining to make up the distinctive face.

Hiccup sighed. “Johann said that the Outcasts were after boat-building equipment. It makes sense they would be after boats as well.”

“Or anything they can find,” said Stoick. “It looks as if they have turned to full piracy. The next time we see them on the sea, there will not be mercy.” His hand tightened around the parchment.

Perhaps they should have considered it, the previous autumn. Hiccup could not have bought himself to condone his father killing Alvin or any of his followers, but that had been an almost private attack, fire at the docks to draw people away just so that Hiccup could be kidnapped, and this was not at all. It was a declaration of war against the world, and felt to Hiccup like far more of a crime.

“Do you want us to resume the watch?” said Hiccup.

“No,” Stoick replied immediately. “We have proof that they are at sea; it is too dangerous for any of you to be out there. The man – Venomspur – his accent was more northerly than here.”

Hiccup had to admit to being impressed; he had not been able to catch that much from the man’s few words.

“And where you showed me, on the map; it would be about right if they had attacked the boat north of Outcast Island, and it had drifted south on the currents. The sailing season closes even sooner up there.”

For a moment, Hiccup wondered whether he should mention the buckle. _North of Outcast Island_. But Venomspur was in no condition to answer questions, and if he was struggling that much with words it was probably still questionable whether he would live out the moon. And the thought of giving Stoick questions with no answers was vaguely sickening in itself.

“All right, Dad,” he said aloud, and left it at that.

 

 

 

 

 

Night came, but not sleep. Hiccup sat at Toothless’s side, turning the buckle over in his hands until his eyes were not even focussed upon it, and only the movement of his fingers remained. Venomspur was clearly in no state to answer questions about it. Hiccup’s fingers found the hollows of the eyesockets, the sharp edge of the one gem remaining.

He thought that he remembered his mother. What her voice sounded like, a vague impression of her holding him. But he had been so young that it was hard to be sure, and all too often he feared that what he remembered was what Stoick or Gobber had said, the stories they had told, and what he had read in her journals. This Bewilderbeast should have meant so much, just of itself, a new dragon with a name and a face, and his mother had drawn it when she was only a child but cared enough to have a buckle made in its image years later. He should have been talking to his father, or at least picking apart the mystery, what had happened that he had previously not even thought of.

Instead, all that he could think of was what Gobber had said. If the belt buckle had not been kept with Valka’s other things, then she had been wearing it the night she disappeared. There was no proof that this buckle was chance, that someone else might have known of the same dragon.

He did not want to think the words, and to do so made him sick, but it was clear enough. The belt buckle was his mother’s. And somehow, it had ended up with someone else.

Venomspur was beyond answering questions. There was only one place that there might be answers to be found.

Wrapping himself up in dark clothes, and using Toothless’s dark tail fin, he opened up the window and climbed out, this time managing not to make much noise when he closed it again. He slipped into the saddle, and they sprung up high, shadows against the deep grey-black clouds where the air was crisp and cold enough that Hiccup felt like he could think clearly again.

He still wanted to shout, to give vent to the anger and sickness bubbling in his chest and pricking at the back of his eyes, but the only way that he could really do that would be to fly higher and further from Berk. Time that it did not feel like he had.

This time of night and this time of year, the wharves were quiet, the seas too unpredictable to dare for even the most experienced of sailors. Hiccup and Toothless landed beside the boat, which had been set aside from Berk’s more out of respect than superstition. He had bought a dark-lantern with him, and held it in front of Toothless; a click of his tongue, a finger pointing in the appropriate direction, and Toothless responded with a delicate puff of flame that might have overfilled the lantern for a moment, but left a perfectly-lit wick in its wake.

“Come on, bud,” said Hiccup softly. “Let’s see if there’s something we missed.”

By night, the boat was even more unsettling, the bloodstains that could not be swept away like black slicks beneath Hiccup’s steps. The worst of the broken wood and scraps of hemp from rope had been cleared away, but nothing could be done about the shattered stump of the mast or the gouges that cut into the gunwhales.

Toothless’s shadow, on the wharf beside the boat, felt like a comforting pair of eyes at his back as Hiccup went over the ship in more detail, from the prow with its indistinct, non-dragon form to the mounts on the gunwhales where shields should have hung. Hiccup knew that he was no expert in boatmaking, but he and Gobber had made plenty of tools for ships over the years, and the karve was a simple clinker build with no deck and no particularly distinguishing features. If there was some detail which said where it had come from, Hiccup could not see it.

He felt his frustration building as he scoured what had been the cargo area towards the stern, and found it also empty. Any ship would have things on it that said _something_ about its crew, that was the nature of them. For this one to be so empty had to be deliberate.

This time, the rush of anger was at Alvin. He must have been the one who ordered this, who gutted the ship and left its crew dead or dying without even the dignity of a true funeral. It would have been more respectful to kill them both and set the boat alight.

But then, the buckle would have been lost as well. Hiccup touched his hand to the pouch on his hip where it lay; it had seemed so essential to bring it with him. As if letting it out of his reach would risk losing it again. Perhaps, despite all that Alvin had done, the gods had other plans.

There had to be something. Anything. He crawled about the hull, checking every nook; something as small as a coin or a piece of dragonshaw might be enough to identify things.

A pale gleam, between one of the ribs and a slightly warped board of the hull, put his heart in his throat. Hiccup scrambled over, climbing past a beam, and caught hold of the piece of parchment that had jammed itself into the gap. It was folded in half, and Hiccup’s hands shook as he flattened it out, holding it close to the lantern to read the slightly smeared ink. The parchment had become damp, and misshapen, but the words were just about readable still.

_Bellowing Heights – bear furs walrus tusk whale oil/arctic fox furs scrimshaw silver_

_Little Isles – bear furs wolf furs/silver tack WATER_

_Sleipnir Island – arctic fox furs walrus tusk silver/amber scrimshaw dragonshaw glass thunderstones_

It went on for a dozen islands in cramped writing, more or less legible in places, but one of the lines caught Hiccup’s eyes

_Frigg’s Hearth – whale oil amber/silver wolf furs dyes buckle_

The word ‘buckle’ was smudged and smeared, but clear enough to Hiccup that his eyes latched on to it as if they would never be torn away. A trade. A recent trade. Hiccup had been looking for where the ship had started, but it sounded as if he would not even need to search that far back.

He had never heard of Frigg’s Hearth, but a couple of the other islands seemed familiar. It should be enough to plot the course that the ship had taken, and to identify the island that was likely to be Frigg’s Hearth. To be where the buckle had been traded.

It was not an answer, not yet. But it was a whisper, a start of one, and Hiccup’s heart beat faster in his chest as he folded the parchment back in half again and looked round to Toothless.

“Bud,” he said, “I think we’ve just found a heading.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bellowing Heights, Little Isles, Sleipnir Island and Frigg's Hearth are all taken from the mobile game _Rise of Berk_ , but their use is for names only. Thunderstones are Stone Age (Palaeo-, Meso- or Neolithic) stone tools which were considered to have mystical properties up until, really, the early modern period.


	10. Chapter 10

It was not hard to prepare for a journey, gather a bedroll and some supplies, and ensure that he had a spare tail fin for Toothless and even a spare foot. Actually, it was technically his old foot, since Gobber had made him a new one amid continued grumbled claims that Hiccup was getting taller. Hiccup was still not fully persuaded on that one, but some shelves did seem marginally easier to reach than they had a year ago. In any case, it left him with a spare, albeit one that made him feel uneven, and he had taken to carrying it with him since.

It was more difficult to decide what to say in the note that he intended to leave for his father. Stoick had a dragon now, as did the rest of the academy; Hiccup could not get out of reach if he told them where he was going. And he did not want his father following until he knew exactly what was going on.

In the end, he did not have much choice but to lie. After everything that had happened, he said – and hoped that his father would read into it that Hiccup had been more affected by the finding of Venomspur and his crewmate than he was letting on – he needed some time alone, and was going to make use of that time to map some more of the small islands well to the north-west of Berk, beyond Dragon Island. If anyone did go looking for him, it should be a safe direction for travel, and there were enough small islands that he could plausibly be difficult to find even for a few days if necessary. He also had some rough map-notes that he could pass off as new.

He still felt guilty for it, but he hoped that he was at least making it as safe as possible. And at this time of year, while everyone was distracted with the very last of the harvest and arguing over which rams were supposed to be servicing which sheep, the academy was less busy anyway.

It was early in the morning, rather than late at night – Toothless had slept, but Hiccup had only drifted in and out of dreams – that he made his way quietly downstairs and put out the letter on the table, where it would be sure to be seen first thing in the morning. Anna’s Terror had largely stopped setting fire to things now.

He held the door open for Toothless, made sure to close it quietly behind him, and almost jumped out of his skin when he turned around to see Elsa standing beside the door.

“Gods above–” he at least managed to keep it to a strangled sound and not a full yelp. “Elsa? Are you all right?”

She looked over at Toothless. It would be a little hard to deny what Hiccup was planning when there was very clearly a bedroll strapped to the back of his saddle. But then again, he had just left a letter saying that he was going for a few days, even if he was not sure that Elsa would be able to read it by herself.

“I… need a few days,” said Hiccup. “I’m going mapping again.”

Of course, Elsa was not just the person that it was hardest to lie to; she was the one who knew most about secrets. She looked at him solemnly, and a little sadly, and while it was possible to lie to her through a letter it was a lot harder to do so face-to-face. Hiccup sighed.

“I’m going searching for where that boat came from,” he said. Part it felt good, all the same, being able to tell someone a part of it. “The man who survived… he’s only been getting worse.” That was all he had received from his father the day before, and all that had needed to be said. “But I found an itinerary, and it said there on it that they’d traded for the belt buckle.”

“The buckle?” She frowned, and this time it looked more like confusion than concern.

It was strange to realise how much of the story he had kept in his head. “It’s…” Hiccup shook his head with a sigh. “Oh, this is so weird.”

“Is this since those books, with Fishlegs?” said Elsa. “Since then, you have…”

The words trailed away, and she stepped closer to him, hand moving towards him for a moment before she seemed to catch herself.

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“Tell me.”

It was not an order, too soft and warm, and somehow it made him want to talk more than an order could ever have done. Hiccup swallowed the lump in his throat. “The man was wearing a buckle. It looked familiar. By – by chance, when I was going through those journals with Fishlegs, he spotted two pages stuck together. The drawing between them looked like the dragon on the buckle.”

The next moment was harder. He licked his lips, and brushed his hands against the top of Toothless’s head.

“The journals were my mother’s. She had drawn the dragon. When I showed the dragon to Gobber, he recognised it – he’d made a buckle for her, with that dragon, before I was born. She was wearing it when she was taken.”

Now Elsa did step right next to him, and take his hand in hers. Even cool, her touch was a comfort, and Hiccup found himself holding on more tightly than he had meant to. “Taken?” she said.

He realised, with a rush of absurdity, that he had never even told her. He had no idea if Anna knew; probably, as Queen, but perhaps not. It was so well-known in Berk, and so unspoken-of, that nobody else needed to breathe the words. “In the bad years,” he said. He knew that he had spoken of those. “When the attacks were worst. She was taken by one of the dragons.”

By her sharp intake of breath, her wide eyes, he knew that she had not expected that. _Taken_ had probably sounded like other Vikings, other _humans_. Her free hand came to rest at the hollow between her collarbones. “I’m sorry,” she said, with barely breath to the words.

Absurd, as well, to apologise for a fifteen-year-old act by another species, but Hiccup understood. And from Elsa, it meant more than it had from most. “I don’t remember it,” said Hiccup, as if that was somehow supposed to help. He could see from Elsa’s expression that she understood how it never made it better, only different. “But the buckle, this buckle…” He had to let go of her hand in order to retrieve it from its belt, shining in the first slips of light. “If it is hers, then it means… there’s something more.”

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps the buckle, alone, had washed up on some shore. But he could not leave the question unasked; that had never been a skill of his.

“And you are looking for something,” she said. Hiccup nodded, and Elsa looked between him and Toothless once again. She reached out a hand for Toothless, who rubbed against it with his low chuffing sound, and was silent for a long moment before looking at Hiccup gravely. “Let me come with you.”

It was the last thing that he expected to hear, and he blinked at her in confusion. “No, it’s, not the academy–” he began.

“No, not the academy,” Elsa cut across him, words far smoother than his, “only me. Let me help you with this.”

Of all the responses he could have made, all that he could manage was, “I’ve only packed for one.”

Elsa smiled, cocking her head. “I do not need much,” she said, a soft note of _reminder_ in her words. “It will only take me a moment.”

He could still refuse, he knew. Or he could agree, but take off while she was preparing her things, and leave her behind all the same. But for this, for this of all things, he ached to know that there was someone at his back, someone more than him and Toothless against the grey unknown looming in front of him.

“Don’t wake Anna,” he said. “I’ll need to change my note.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was still not quite dawn as they took to the sky, chasing the darkness north. Elsa had worn plain dark clothes and bought out a hooded cloak without even needing to be asked, with a small pack that she strapped across her back. She still looked far healthier, far cleaner, than she had done when they first met, but for a moment he saw the wildling there again, and it was harder than ever to think of with the weary pain of the buckle already on him.

He put the thought aside as they flew, put aside everything but Toothless’s muscles and the foot and stirrup that made them into one thing, staying so low that they had to weave between the rocky outcrops that thrust up from the sea.

They flew as daylight grew, and once they were well out over the open sea Hiccup pulled them up higher, slowing them down to a pace that Toothless could maintain over a longer distance.

“Thank you,” he said finally, the first words that he had managed since they had taken to the air. He glanced over his shoulder to see Elsa looking surprised. “For coming with me.”

As they had slowed down, she had removed her arms from his waist, and now she pressed one hand to his back. “I thought… you would not want to be alone for this.”

She was right. It didn’t particularly surprise him, considering everyone around him seemed to be correcting him on things lately, but he would take correcting over telling off any day. Stoick and Gobber were the ones who most _deserved_ to know, that was the thing, but he could not bear to give them the burden of an unanswered question. Telling anyone else, unasked, had been unthinkable, and only when Elsa had made it a question had it felt at all possible to speak to someone. But it had ached all the same.

“I think I needed to not be alone,” he admitted.

Beneath them, Toothless rumbled.

“Alone apart from you,” Hiccup corrected, with a nudge of his knee in returned. Toothless swayed a little with the pressure, but Hiccup suspected that was only teasing as well. “Can’t really be alone with a dragon.”

Elsa laughed, soft but enough for him to feel it through her body. “That is true.”

The silence stretched out, worse than it had been before for having been broken at all the first time. “I’m sorry,” Hiccup said, without looking round this time. “I know that this must seem stupid. It’s been nearly fifteen years, and this is just a buckle, and–”

“No,” said Elsa, firmly enough at least to cut his words short. “If I thought there was something about my parents… I would go too.”

And he would not have a moment’s doubt about going with her. It would have been the most ridiculous sort of hypocrisy had he actually tried to leave her behind. “Thank you,” he said again.

Elsa’s arms wound around him again for a moment, but this time it was to squeeze him gently. Truth be told, that was probably better than being punched, or put in a headlock to have his hair ruffled. Berk had some things it could learn from Arendelle, after all.

 

 

 

 

 

Outcast Island passed easily, little more than a dark shape on the horizon, but Hiccup marked it on his sketched-out map all the same. Further on, he knew, he would not know the islands so well, and would have to work from his father’s sea-charts and the list that the boat had left behind. By the time that the sun was reaching its peak, the next island was coming into view, and Hiccup could not avoid a tingle of excitement at the thought that this was the furthest north he had ever been.

They ended up with Hiccup practicing his Marulosen. He still struggled sometimes with the long, complex words, especially when it came to tenses, but Elsa said that he was at least largely understandable when he spoke. The harder part was not slipping into Arendellen instead along the way.

They took a break in the early afternoon, on some small island with a handful of Nadders that regarded them suspiciously but showed no aggression. Hiccup took back to the sea with Toothless, scooped up a few fish, and offered most of them to the Nadders as a sort of peace greeting.

Elsa watched, smiling and shaking her head, as he managed to progress to rubbing the Nadder’s noses, and scratching their chins, in what must have been less than an hour. Beside her, Toothless watched from his flump on the sand, occasionally squirming about after what must have been some itch or other.

Rested, they continued on mostly comfortably, although Hiccup’s attempts to practise his Marulosen were occasionally sidetracked when he started wondering aloud about what it would take to make a saddle designed for two people. Elsa soon worked out that answering his question, but in Marulosen, would drag his attention back on track quickly enough. And leatherworking terms might be useful in any case.

For once, they went without watches, on some spur of rock in the middle of the ocean with a cave just large enough and turned in just the right direction that the wind did not whistle into it in the way that it was cutting across the open ocean. Elsa was the first to crawl under Toothless’s wing, apparently without a second thought, but it did not take long for Hiccup to admit that she was absolutely right and it would indeed be the warmest and most comforting place to sleep.

By the end of the second day, they were following the list of the islands that Hiccup had found, and his hands trembled slightly as he was able to start ticking them off. When he caught sight of ships on the horizon, he dropped them closer to sea level until they were long clear, and marvelled just how much easier things seemed when he had the whole sky to move in.

“We should reach Frigg’s Hearth tomorrow,” he said, as they sat beside their fire on another island that night. The wind had turned colder and stronger, coming from the north-west now, and a boat would probably have struggled. As soon as Hiccup had felt Toothless starting to flag, he had taken them down again.

 

“You are nervous?” said Elsa. Although it was the shape of a question, Hiccup knew that it was not particularly one. She sat cross-legged, with Toothless between them, while from the mouth of the cave a wild Monstrous Nightmare was regarding them curiously. It was young, perhaps only half-grown and probably not long away from its parents, and had warmed immediately to either them or the fish Hiccup had offered up.

He almost gave a flippant reply, but this was Elsa. “Yes,” he said. “And no, in a way. This might be my chance to get some answers. Even if those answers lead to more questions.” He turned his knife back and forth so that the firelight caught on the blade, and grabbed a stray stick from the ground. The Gronckle iron went through the wood as if it were water, freshly sharpened before he had set out. Elsa’s was doubtless still sharp as well; she used hers far less than Hiccup did his.

“It is better to know,” she said.

On that, she certainly knew better than him. Eleven years believing her sister dead and her parents alive, only to find out that it was the other way around.

“Anna used a word,” Elsa continued. “In Arendellen. _Rataasikmin_.”

“Closure.”

She nodded. “It sounds a little like the Marulosen word for _to close_ , yes.”

“I feel bad, in a way,” he admitted. “I keep telling myself this is for my father, and I know that it’s probably more important to him than it could be to me. But I want to do this for me, as well.” It took barely any pressure to take another slice off the end of the stick. “It feels selfish.”

“It’s not.”

Despite her words, he couldn’t bring himself to look up, and cut the stick again. This should have been his father’s discovery, in some ways, and Hiccup could not shake the feeling that he was interfering, intruding, on it all. He was not sure whether he was driven more by wanting to give his father a concluded answer, or whether he wanted that answer for himself. If there were some way that Stoick could be the first to know, and still know everything, it would have been what Hiccup wanted.

But that was about the only thing he was sure about.

“Hiccup,” said Elsa, and it was more the weariness of her tone that actually made him look round. It was a tone he was far more used to hearing from his father or Gobber, because he had done something foolish for what probably seemed to them like the millionth time. She reached her hand across to him, but he was slightly too far away and she withdrew it again. “You have a right to know as well. That is not selfish.”

“I feel like I should say thank you, but the last couple of days have involved me just… thanking you, a lot,” he said.

Elsa smiled. “ _Tel paakuolostii Marulosen_ ,” she said.

“Or I will speak… no,” Hiccup caught himself, as Elsa raised an eyebrow, “I can speak Marulosen?”

“You could speak Marulosen.”

He licked his lips. “ _Ahaaltoolosuma paaku Marulosen?_ ”

“ _Marulosaot_ ,” said Elsa.

Hiccup sighed. “Odin’s arse. That’s that… unfinished case thing. I should ask Anna what that’s called.”

“Unfortunately, I do not know the word,” Elsa admitted. “But it would be understood. They would know what you mean.”

“It’s a start.”

 

 

 

 

 

The island came into view a day’s good sailing north of Ostara Isle, beneath a smudged grey sky that thinned the sunlight around them. He knew it from the moment that he saw it, with reddish-tinged mountains that reached above the treeline like flames above a hearth. Heart quickening in his chest, Hiccup leant forward in the saddle, and did not realise that his right leg was jostling in place until Elsa’s hand came to rest gently on his thigh.

“Sorry,” he muttered, pulling upright again. He felt some of the tension release from Toothless’s muscles, tension which must have been put there when Hiccup leant forwards. “That’s it.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, it seemed a lot more daunting to put down. They had no boat, to pretend that they had come in by sea, and the island was probably not big enough to have multiple settlements. Unless they wanted to wait until nightfall, it was likely that inhabitants would be put on edge by the sight of a Night Fury. If they even recognised it at all.

He should probably have put more thought into this.

“All right,” said Hiccup, taking a deep breath. He got out his spyglass. “We’ll sweep past slowly, scan for… anything, really. Then land in the forests behind the village,” he eyed the bay that would have to be the best settlement site, and the dark smudge of trees around it, “and take it from there.”

“Yes,” Elsa said.

He had no idea whether or not she knew he was talking mostly to himself. Hiccup shifted his damp-palmed hold on the spyglass, then with a slight shift of his body started to bring Toothless towards the island, shedding some altitude as they went.

Practice with the spyglass had let him know when he would start to be able to see anything. Once they were close enough, Hiccup took a look, and indeed saw that there were buildings around the bay he had sighted, mostly small houses but some large buildings as well, though he was too far away to make out any detail and even the movement of Toothless’s wings gave his view a giddying lurch. He had to look away for a moment, to try to breathe away the sickness, and by the time that he looked again they were considerably closer.

The lurching was worse. Hiccup barely had time to snatch a look at the shoreline – there were boats at the wharves, but not many – and scan for large towers or structures. There did not look to be any, nor much in the way of dragon defences at all. The roll of nausea was worse, and Hiccup had to look away for longer the second time around, able to look at the island only enough to get Toothless level and arcing round now.

From this distance, any Viking paying good attention would be able to identify them as a distant dragon and not just a large bird. In the Berk of the summer before the Red Death, some people would be heading to the catapults and the armoury, just to be on the safe side. But when Hiccup looked through the spyglass one last time, through the shifting circle all that he could see was open ground. No movement.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

Surely, there could be no other island in this region that could be called Frigg’s Hearth. Hiccup swung them to the north, pushing a little faster, and on the far side of the mountains bought them down quickly to barely above the treetops. They traced back around again, and as soon as the tops of the tallest buildings of the village came into view dipped down to land in the first clearing that became visible.

“What is it?” said Elsa, barely above a murmur. She did not need to wait for Hiccup to speak before she dismounted, and faced him across the dragon’s back.

For a moment, Hiccup did not reply, and simply listened. He could hear the normal sounds of the forest, the wind in the leaves and branches, the sound of the waves against the shore not all that far away. But there was none of the sound that he would usually associate with even the smallest village.

“It’s too quiet,” he said. He glanced around them, then came to a decision. “Here, take that pack off. We’ll leave most of our things here.”

He removed everything non-essential from Toothless’s saddle, and put his shield on his own back. An old, part-hollow tree provided shelter enough, and putting the groundsheet in last meant that its dull brown fabric was camouflage enough for a casual glance. Elsa divested herself of her own pack, but did seem to pause over her cloak for a moment.

Hiccup shook his head. “Don’t bother. We’ll be quiet, but we aren’t trying to hide.”

“All right.”

They walked in near-silence towards the village, Hiccup pressing just a little harder just to stay ahead of the others. He did not want them to be the ones taking any sort of risk, and especially did not want them to think that they were here to protect him. For all that he knew they were well capable of doing so. No matter how close they came, there was none of the sound of people that he would expect, and when Toothless started to sniff the air Hiccup had them stop as well.

Burning. Wood, and meat beneath it. That would not have been worrying if human sounds had been there as well, or even animal ones of the sort that could easily drown out humans. But there was nothing.

“Wait here,” said Hiccup. Elsa frowned at him, and even Toothless made as if to step forwards. “No, I mean it!” He gestured at them both. “Wait here. If I shout, or you hear a whistle, then fine. If I only call for you, though,” he added, pointing to Elsa, “then Toothless needs to stay here. All right?”

Though she pursed her lips, Elsa nodded.

“All right.” He touched the knife at his hip, just once. Even after almost a year, he could not thank Gobber enough for having made them.

Then he turned back towards the village once again.

The forest began to thin out, trees looking younger as well as becoming sparser, and soon it was possible to catch glimpses of buildings. Hiccup kept his pace slow and steady, ears pricked, but there was nothing to hear, only his footsteps seeming far too loud. He reached the edge of the treeline, and stopped, scanning the rear of the village which he found himself facing.

Something was definitely very, very wrong. The weather was fine, for autumn, cool but clear, and there should still have been people harvesting crops, herding animals, working, stockpiling wood and food for the winter. With good boats and experienced sailors, it would still be possible to fish in closer waters. But the only noise that had become apparent as Hiccup came closer was the crackling shift of an old fire, a sound he knew well from the forge.

Something told him there was not much point in hiding and dodging from shelter to shelter. Hiccup got out his whistle but did not call, keeping it at hand just in case. There might still be survivors around.

It was not until he thought the word _survivors_ that he recognised the horror in his gut. Abandoning the trees, he walked between the first two of the buildings, and into a village the greeted him hollowed out and grim with the feel of death.

There were no people. No animals. Doors and shutters stood open or barred, untouched, and when one banged in the distance with the wind it made Hiccup jump.  Ground which would once have been open, kept flat by human and animals walking through, had become overgrown with grass and wildflowers, stones that once made paths pushed aside or covered completely. Some of them Hiccup did not see, only feel when his foot struck stone. The houses stood, but several had lost doors or window shutters, and he could see damp and rot around the base of several of them. The doors gaped, black spaces, and he did not particularly want to enter them.

Their meade hall stood towards the rear of the village, furthest from the wharves; it was smaller than Berk’s, a freestanding structure rather than being built onto and into stone, and as Hiccup came closer he saw that the doors were both gone, and that sunlight streamed inside where the roof had obviously long since collapsed.

He stopped, and swallowed. The list he had found indicated that Frigg’s Hearth had been capable of trade, not all that long ago, but it was in disarray. A failing settlement? Villages much smaller than Berk often struggled, Hiccup knew that, not enough people to build and gather and fish, not enough children being born. But something had happened, must have happened, for this.

For a moment, he considered calling out, but was not sure what he would do if someone answered. He rounded another building, and his blood seemed to run cold in his veins.

A large area of freshly-turned earth stretched out in front of him. Rectangular, more or less, but huge, a trench or pit, large enough to bury a dragon in.

Large enough to bury any number of people in.

The sickness rose again. Hiccup backed away, almost stumbling over some stone or lump of wood or something – he did not even want to look down and see what it was. He hurried between two houses, towards the water mill that he could see on the edge of town, but as he stepped out between them a handful of boars, startled by his entranced, squealed and stampeded away. If there were boars there, there were not humans.

Fire. He had smelt fire. Hiccup hastened back to the centre of the village, then down towards the water, his heart pounding in his chest and his mouth dry. Before he even reached the wharves, he found a huge bonfire, metal pieces among the coals and embers, still shifting and settling but clearly abandoned days ago. Three wooden stakes stood tall in the middle of the fire, and as Hiccup’s horrified eyes tracked downwards he caught the gleam of bone at their base.

No people. No animals. A village destroyed. The boats that remained, now that he could see them, were older and smaller, small fishing vessels and nothing else. He did not know how large a force it would take to obliterate a village like this, but he doubted that Berk’s power would have been enough to do it. Something had swept through here, and from the look of the fire and the fresh earth had done so recently.

Finally remember the whistle in his half-numb hand, he struggled to wet his lips enough to few notes upon it. Although the village was not large, he felt disorientated, as if the world had been spinning beneath him, and had to take a moment to work out where Elsa and Toothless would be coming from before jogging back in that direction.

They were still moving in the shadows of houses, Toothless with his wings slightly flared and his whole body taut. Hiccup ran straight to them, and saw the surprise on Elsa’s face that he was so clearly out in the open.

“Elsa,” he said breathlessly, as he reached her. “Something has happened here. Some sort of attack.” This had suddenly become something so much more than he had thought it was going to be. “We need to see if there’s anyone still here. Anyone at all.”

He did not want to use the word _survivors_ aloud, but it was perfectly clear in her expression that she could see what he meant. They had come hoping for answers, and instead found death.

“All right,” said Elsa, but it sounded like an apology all over again. “I will come with you.”

It was not in the least what he had meant. But all the same, he knew, he would be grateful to have them at his side.


	11. Chapter 11

With a piece of wood still solid and dry enough, Hiccup had Toothless make them a torch, and finally braved the meade hall of the village. Leaves had been blown in through the open doors, piled up against benches and tables both upright and overturned, and fluttering over fires long since black and cold. The walls were charred and marked as well, deep cuts hacked into wooden pillars; Hiccup could imagine what had happened here, and did not much want to.

But there was no sign of anyone, no footprints or tracked mud or any sign that there had been anyone here since the fighting. At least, he supposed, there were no bones either. That might just have been too much.

Elsa did not speak, only shook her head when Hiccup caught her eye, and stayed quiet as well when they checked a couple of other houses. Ones where the doors already stood open; he could not bring himself to move the ones that were closed. Nor did he take Elsa near the stakes near the wharves. Not her, not ever again.

“Do you think there is anyone here?” said Elsa, quietly, as they stood in the centre of the village. “If they were attacked, it would have been wise to go into the forest, perhaps.”

“You might be right,” said Hiccup. He rubbed his forehead. “I just… this looks like it happened so much longer ago than a few days, but that trading boat said that it had been here only a few days ago. But surely they would have made a note if…”

“Perhaps they met another boat here?” said Elsa, though she did not sound in the least bit convinced. “Or it was a different island?”

The former was a possibility, even if the island would have made a grim place to meet someone. But Hiccup doubted there could be another island that could look so much like this, that could earn the name Frigg’s Hearth so well. “Possibly,” he said. He looked around them again, then shook his head. “I probably should have checked out the wharves more… you guys stay here. Or stay together, at least.”

“I do not want you going by yourself.” Elsa’s voice was more jagged at the edges, and it caught him so off-balance that he stumbled, looking at her in amazement. She looked around them again, at the deserted village. “Something is wrong in this place.”

“No, it’s, it’s bad down there,” he said, and as she frowned realised that he was taking the wrong tack. He did not even know what might be down there, that was the thing, but he knew that there were stakes and that was too much. He backed up a few steps. “I mean, there’s not much there to search, it won’t take me long, but–”

Elsa darted forward, crossing the small gap between them, and caught Hiccup by the wrist. “What is there?” she said, more insistently.

Even if she could not work out exactly what it was, she had clearly seen in his eyes that there was something. Hiccup felt his mouth go dry, and frantically scrambled for something that he could _say_ , when there was a creaking sound and Toothless turned, growling, to something upwind of them.

There was not even time for a breath before the net slammed into Toothless. Toothless screamed, body jerking, but the force of the net and the stones attached to it knocked him sideways, rolling him over and pulling one of his wings back on itself. Hiccup did not have time to think, dropping down to one knee and pulling Elsa with him as he pulled his shield round and onto his arm. They were right in the middle of the village, right in the open, and he cursed himself for stepping so far away from the protection of the houses.

“It’s all right!” Hiccup shouted, with as much force as he could. “He’s not dangerous! Come on,” he added to Elsa, voice dropping, and tugged on her arm as if to pull them both towards Toothless.

He did not get the chance. Figures started stepping out from behind the houses, in threes or fours, each group with a greatshield and everyone else armed with crossbows. Some of them came _out_ of the houses, and Hiccup wondered how long they had been waiting there, surrounded by burnt beams and rotting leaves. Only there was something unsettlingly familiar about the armour on the men, and as the first wave of panic and Hiccup’s vision cleared, he saw one final figure step out of one of the houses, whose door had been closed all this time.

Alvin the Treacherous looked straight at Hiccup, and grinned. “Well, well,” he said. “Didn’t expect just you. But no boat and no backup it looks to be. I thought you were smarter than that!”

Elsa’s hand uncurled from Hiccup’s wrist, but she clenched her fists as her eyes fixed on Alvin. He felt the air around them grow cold, one sharp sudden drop, but then Elsa made a choking sound and fell to her knees, grabbing at the dirt with fear and pain on her features. When she looked up at Alvin again, there was something in her eyes like a wild animal in a biting trap.

“What is it?” said Hiccup, in an undertone.

“My magic…” her words shook. “It _hurt_.”

Hiccup eyed the Outcasts around them. Maybe thirty altogether, far more than had come to Berk, and better armed. The greatshields would probably protect them from the worst of Toothless’s fire, would at least mean that the first one would only knock them back and not do anything worse, and Toothless seemed to have realised it as well, snarling but not lashing out. His wing, partially unfurled, was bent back at what had to be a painful angle, and he was thoroughly tangled in the net, but it would be possible to burn or cut through that quickly enough.

“All right, Alvin,” he said. He unlooped his shield and dug the edge into the ground, where it would cover Elsa on one side. Standing up, he kept his hands up, showing that he held no weapon. “I wasn’t expecting this, either. So why don’t you tell me what you want?”

“Well,” said Alvin, in that tone of voice as if he was actually conceding something, “I was expecting your father, truth be told, but in some ways this is better. Drop your weapons. Those knives of yours,” he gestured vaguely. “And then take four paces back. Both of you.”

“Elsa, can you stand up?” said Hiccup. He took his time drawing his knife, holding it out, and dropping it at arm’s length. A couple of the crossbows were aimed at them, even if most of them were on Toothless.

She stood up unsteadily, face pale and drawn, and struggled to draw her knife. Seeing her shaking hand, Hiccup drew the knife for her, dropped it beside his, and held her elbow to guide her back the four paces demanded. Her steps grew steadier, and she stood up straighter as she went, until it was only a touch and not a support. He kept his hand there all the same, mostly for the look of it as the Outcasts were eyeing them.

“I don’t understand,” she said, as they stood watching the Outcasts again. Alvin gestured for one of the groups to accompany him, three men with crossbows and the woman, Clenchjaw, with the greatshield fronted in cream and red dragon hide. They skirted around Toothless, Alvin not even missing a step as he indicated one of the men, then pointed at Toothless’s tail.

The man paused for an instant, then darted in to Toothless’s rear end, drawing a knife.

“Toothless!” Hiccup shouted. Toothless himself shrieked and tried to whirl, the whine of a building shot in his throat, but the man’s arm moved and then he was running back again, diving behind the cover of one of the greatshields. There was no blood, no scream of injury from Toothless, just a growl that seemed to fill the air around them.

“Oh, call ‘im off,” said Alvin. “You know as well as I do he can’t fire past those greatshields.”

“Do you really want to test the power of a Night Fury, Alvin?” said Hiccup sharply.

Alvin stopped for a moment, looked over at Toothless thoughtfully, then turned back to Hiccup. Behind the beard, he was still smiling, and Hiccup felt anger harden in the midst of worry. “You’re no killer, boy,” he said. “You were the one who let us live last time, remember? And if the beast thought it could get free, it would have tried already. Now tell it to calm down, before it hurts itself.”

Toothless’s wings twitched within the net, and his shoulders were hunched as he looked towards the men, away from Hiccup. For a long, heavy moment, Hiccup tried to think of a way that would not look like giving in, but then he whistled and Toothless stilled, muscles relaxing at least a little.

A chuckle left Alvin’s lips. “If that was to hide the name, you needn’t bother. Toothless, wasn’t it?” he said, mockery evident in his voice. Hiccup bristled, but said nothing. “Fool name for the beast, but there you are. Now, stand apart,” he said, gesturing between Elsa and Hiccup, “and kneel down.”

“I’m not kneeling to you,” he replied.

“No, you’re kneeling to the crossbows,” said Alvin. “Now step apart, and kneel down, or we’ll put a bolt in that Night Fury to make a point. You know as well as I do that one won’t be enough to kill him, and with that thing on his tail cut I don’t think he’s going to be flying any time soon. Now, do it,” he growled.

Clenching his teeth, Hiccup looked over at Elsa. He did not want to use her magic like a weapon, desperately did not, but they would need to get Toothless out of the net before they would even have a chance of getting away, and Hiccup would not be able to run through a barrage of crossbow bolts no matter how much he wished that he could.

“And her magic won’t be working either.”

Alvin was still grinning, and Hiccup felt as if he had been struck around the head again, ears ringing and world tightening in around him. In absolute disbelief, Hiccup was hardly aware as he was grabbed, pulled away from Elsa, pushed down to his knees. Dimly he looked over at Elsa, to see that feral mix of fear and anger around her again, and ice spread out around her knees only for her to grunt with pain and double over again.

“Elsa…” even his voice sounded distant.

“Oh, she’ll be all right,” Alvin said. “As long as she doesn’t go using any of that magic of hers. No, wait,” he turned to look at Elsa herself, even as one of his men was binding her wrists. “You can still hear me. Don’t use the magic, and you won’t pay the price. And don’t think of asking how,” he added, to both of them. “You should know by now I’m not thick-headed enough to tell.”

 

 

 

 

 

They shackled Toothless, strapped his mouth shut, and Alvin seemed to give the saddle and tail only a cursory glance before telling his men exactly what it was for. One of the men seemed ready to cut off the saddle, but Alvin condescendingly pointed out the buckles and straps.

“It could be useful, after all,” he said, as the saddle was removed. “And I’d hate to see young Hiccup’s work go to waste.”

“Wait,” said Hiccup, as the boats were almost ready to cast off. He could not keep the regret from his voice, but perhaps it gave him a ring of honesty, as Alvin stilled his men with a wave of his hand and looked at Hiccup curiously. “We left more of our belongings just outside the village, on the western side. It’s in a hollow tree. If you really don’t want to see my work go to waste,” he said, letting just a hint of venom creep in to his tone, “you might want to collect that as well.”

Alvin paused for a moment, then sent two of his men, warning them to watch for booby traps. Unfortunately, such caution was not going to be necessary, but Hiccup did not say anything as he and Elsa were led onto the boat.

This was not the sort of small sneke they had seen before. This was a drakkar, though the paint of the figurehead was flaking and there were blade-scars on the mast. There was a decked area at the stern, behind even the rudder, and Hiccup was not at all surprised this time when he and Elsa were taken back there and their hands tied to opposite sides of the boat. At least this time the weather was better. Toothless was strapped down securely towards the prow, with a dragonskin shield put in front of his mouth to prevent him setting the boat alight, and not long afterwards the two men returned from the woods with their things.

When Alvin found the spare tail, he looked at Hiccup for a moment and raised an eyebrow. It would not surprise Hiccup if Alvin did have some idea why Hiccup wanted it with them. But Alvin chucked the bags into the prow, took his place at the rudder, and ordered the boat to push off.

The flurry of action from getting underway lulled into silence as they continued on. Locking them onto a course, Alvin sat down on a low barrel, and surveyed Hiccup and Elsa with a look that Hiccup would have described as cautiously optimistic.

“What were their names?” said Hiccup. Alvin cocked his head, and even Elsa looked round with a faint frown. “The two men on that boat, the trading vessel. What were their names?”

“They knew them,” said Alvin. “That’ll be enough for the gods.”

To talk of the gods, after having left the men without their proper rites. Hiccup snorted in disdain. “I’m sure the gods already know yours, Alvin.”

Alvin laughed. “They used to call me Alvin the Honest, did you know that? No,” he said, as Hiccup must have failed to keep the surprise from his face, “of course your father wouldn’t have shared that detail. But are you really that surprised? I never would have been trusted otherwise.”

“You may have killed those two men,” said Hiccup, “but even with all of your Outcasts and whatever boats you’ve stolen, you didn’t destroy that village.”

“A smart one indeed,” Alvin said, only slightly condescending. “No, that village was already destroyed when we got there. But a couple of fresh fires, turn over some of the earth, and it had you looking for something that definitely wasn’t us. Besides, it was convenient to build up a route that I was fairly sure your father would reconstruct.”

It felt as if his heart sank in his chest, but Hiccup did his best not to let it show. “You faked the trading list,” he said levelly. It was almost impressive, he supposed. A slip of paper jammed somewhere that it would not be lost. The currents would have been about right to carry the boat within Berk’s fishing waters, eventually. “Did you mean to leave one of the men alive?”

At that, Alvin looked genuinely surprised; more to Hiccup’s surprise, he actually looked rueful. “No,” said Alvin. “I wouldn’t have had him die slow.”

“How thoughtful of you,” said Hiccup.

“Look on the bright side.” Alvin leant forward in his seat. “If I’d’ve wanted _you_ dead, I’d’ve done that straight away as well. So think of it as a good sign.”

Unfortunately, Alvin was right; he wanted all of them alive, be it for one reason or several. Last time, Hiccup knew that he had been intended as a hostage for the information about the ‘Dragon Conqueror’ if he could not provide that information himself; Elsa had been taken to prevent her from talking about what happened, he would guess, or as informant or hostage again. This time around, Hiccup was not sure what was wanted from him, but he doubted that he was going to like it when he found out.

“And the buckle?” said Hiccup, after a moment’s impassive-faced pause. He shifted where he sat, doing his best to get comfortable when he was more used to a saddle beneath him than wooden boards these days. “If it didn’t come from Frigg’s Hearth, where was it from?”

He did not like the way that Alvin grinned, even before the answer came. “That information’s worth a little more, I think, so I’ll be keeping hold of it for the time being. Perhaps in return for something.”

As bitter as it was to hear the words spoken, they were true as well. Hiccup knew full well that he would be willing to do any number of things to find out where the buckle had come from, and he knew that Alvin was smart enough to have figured that out as well.

“Might have to be soon,” he said. The words came out calmer than he had expected, and he hoped that they were passably in-control. “I left a message for my father saying where I was headed. He won’t be that far behind.”

“Your Night Fury will travel a lot faster than a boat,” said Alvin, sounding unimpressed. “And I may not have known your father since your mother was lost, but I knew him before. He wouldn’t let you go off ahead.”

The rush of anger felt like fire in his chest, prickling at the back of his throat. Hiccup did not close his eyes against it, but he could not focus on Alvin, could not do anything more than look straight though him to the distant horizon.

It had to have been deliberate, the choice of words. To mention Valka was not necessary, not even if Alvin knew the buckle was hers, and the way that he was watching Hiccup made it more than clear that it had been done to gain a reaction. Hiccup felt like he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, but he knew that he could not wait too long or whatever he said would look even more like the lie that it was.

“I know that as well,” he said. “That’s why I gave the message to someone else, to give to my father after a day. I was going to come ahead and find the information for him. You don’t think that I’d leave my father out of this, do you?”

It was a cold trick to play, and felt colder for being untrue, but it seemed to be enough to make Alvin pause. His head tilted, just slightly, and his smile softened.

“Besides,” added Hiccup, unable to help a small, vicious thrill, “who says that he’s coming by boat?”

Elsa’s bound feet twitched, just enough to brush against his good ankle, and the only reason that he did not look at her was because he did not want Alvin to see him do so. Alvin’s eyes were still on Hiccup’s, still unreadable beyond broad swathes of emotion – victory, for now. But as Alvin straightened up, then leant back against the shields on the gunwhales of the ship, Hiccup had a sinking feeling that his mouth had managed to get him into trouble again.

“Now _there’s_ new information,” said Alvin thoughtfully, and Hiccup could have kicked himself. “I saw your friends on their dragons, but Stoick the Vast on dragonback? There’s a day to go down in history.”

He laughed, a rough vague chuckle to himself.

“Don’t worry about telling me the breed yet. You can save that as a bargaining chip. A little advice.”

Hiccup wished that he had something that would make a good reply, but did not. Instead he clamped his jaw closed, and let his anger and contempt pour out through his gaze.

“You’re a smart boy,” said Alvin. “Just need to do a bit more learning. With the right teacher you could have gone far, by now.”

“Indeed?” said Hiccup. He stretched out his arms and tilted his chin up, trying to act as if the slight against his father was not like a lash to the cheek. “And let me guess, you think that you would make the right teacher.”

“I think you could learn more from me than you realise.”

That part might just have been true, although Hiccup had no intention of learning the things that Alvin was _trying_ to teach him. Things that went unsaid, though, probably would be worth paying attention to. It had been a long time since Berk had known exactly what was going on when it came to Outcast Island, and perhaps it was about time that they did.

 

 

 

 

 

A few more times as the day went on, Alvin tried to engage Hiccup or Elsa in conversation again, asking her about Arendelle or him about how he had come up with Toothless’s name, but Elsa remained stubbornly silent and Hiccup decided it would be better to follow her example. Alvin did not seem to get annoyed, merely amused, and apart from the occasional comment to a man he addressed as Savage, who seemed to be in command of actually giving orders to the men, he let the silence remain unbroken.

From time to time, Hiccup caught snatches of the conversations among the other Outcasts, but they were normal things, talking about food or sex or what dragons they had seen recently in which areas. Entirely unremarkable, which did not in the least surprise him. They were still Vikings, after all. He wished that he had enough Marulosen to speak privately with Elsa, but the things that he wanted to say still had enough names or places in them that he did not want to risk it.

They stopped at nightfall, taking on more water and giving the rowers a chance to stretch their legs, but to Hiccup’s surprise they did not camp for the night. Night sailing could be a risk even during the calmest parts of summer, and this late in autumn Hiccup would not have risked it. But nobody questioned Alvin, and each of the Outcasts fastened a rope around their waists before continuing. For once, Hiccup was glad that the rope around his hands was tied securely to the ship.

The night was rougher than the day. With clouds obscuring the stars and the ship bucking more beneath them, Hiccup honestly thought that he might vomit, and heaved more than once as his stomach seemed to take whatever the ship was doing and multiply it. He was glad that he hadn’t eaten when he had been offered bread during the afternoon.

Elsa shuffled closer, after a particularly choppy series of waves lulled a little, although she could only touch her foot to his leg. “Hiccup?” she said, so quietly that he barely heard it. She slipped into Marulosen. “ _You are all right?_ ”

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, automatically, then actually looked up and saw the worry on her face. “ _Yes and no._ ”

“ _The sea._ ”

He nodded. Being kidnapped by Alvin and tied up was certainly not helping, but he did not know enough Marulosen to express that. Instead he gestured vaguely with his bound wrists, and was not sure that Elsa understood. But she did smile tenderly for a moment, before it slipped again.

She rattled off a longer, more complicated question; it was something to do with a _where_ , but beyond that the words blurred together too much. Hiccup shook his head.

“ _Can you repeat that, please?_ ” It was a phrase that she had taught him early on, and which he had made very good use of. Apparently it was the one which he could pronounce the best, as well; he wasn’t wholly sure how he felt about that, but there were worse things to be able to say.

“ _Lireej_ ,” she said again. It still refused to come to him. Elsa glanced towards the crew, including Alvin who was still nearby even if his back was turned towards them. “ _Alireetoluma_ ,” she mimed writing with her left hand, and as the word clicked Hiccup nodded. “ _Where did you say,_ ” she split the syllables like words, doubtless for his benefit, “ _we were to go? To the north?_ ”

That, unfortunately, was something he was only going to be admitting to her. “ _To the west,_ ” Hiccup replied.

Dismay, not hidden quite quickly enough, crossed Elsa’s features, and Hiccup felt a rush of shame at the sight of it. If he had at least said that he was mapping to the north, any search made for them would be in the correct direction. But that had been the very thing that he was trying to avoid when he left the letter for his father. His planning could probably use some work.

Elsa lowered her hands back to her lap. “ _It does not matter. We will be all right._ ”

He was grateful that she did not at least use the form of Marulosen which expressed hopes instead of realities. Even if he couldn’t help feeling that would have been the more honest one.

 

 

 

 

 

They made landfall on Outcast island late on the second day, as it was starting to rain and thunder rumbled from dark, far-west clouds. There would be storms before the night was through.

Hiccup had never seen Outcast Island before, and even with his body stiff and sore from being tied for so long, he could not help looking around, taking it in. It was still very bare, the land so young that there was little soil and much bare rock, dark and fine-grained. There were a few bridges joining spurs of rock together, but not much in the way of actual buildings, and Hiccup wondered where the actual structures of the island were. Though probably he would find that out before too long as well.

“Those of you who ain’t here for the ship or the cargo, get moving,” said Alvin, and perhaps half of the Outcasts rumbled assent and set off between the uneven spurs of rock. “Savage, get the ship cleared.”

“Aye aye, Alvin,” said Savage.

Alvin disembarked as well, and gestured for Clenchjaw and one of the men to approach Hiccup and Elsa. Hiccup was not entirely sure what to expect, but not wholly surprised when his feet were freed, his hands released from the gunwhale, and he was hauled to his feet. Bolts of pain shot down his left leg, and he hissed and stumbled as for a moment it refused to hold his weight at all, but it passed as it always did and he breathed again.

“Come on, girl,” said Clenchjaw, to his right, and he looked round quickly more at the silence than anything else. Elsa was sitting drawn as far back as she could, still bound, with danger in her eyes. The air cooled, then Clenchjaw tossed her cloak back over her shoulder and Elsa seemed to almost convulse with pain, gasping and clutching her arms harder to her chest as her fingers tightened until the knuckles turned white.

“Elsa!” Hiccup tried to step over, but the Outcast soldier grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him away instead. He glared at the man. “Hey! I’m not going anywhere without her.”

“I told you there’d be no magic this time,” said Alvin. Hiccup looked to see him on the shore, looking on with a faint, pleased expression. “As for you, _Elsa_ ,” he made her name clear, but at least was not vicious when he spoke it, “it would be wiser if you did not antagonise my fighters.”

Still breathing hard, Elsa paused with her eyes still locked on Clenchjaw, then turned her head away sharply as she relaxed her hands from her chest. Her eyes stayed on the horizon as her feet were untied and her hands released. She was pulled upwards with as little ceremony as Hiccup, then grabbed by the upper arm and steered towards the shore.

Hiccup looked over Clenchjaw as quickly as he could while he, too, was shoved towards the wharves. She was wearing sturdy scalemail, her arms fully covered even beneath her bracers, and her cloak thrown back to fully reveal one shoulder. On the side, where a rondel might sit on full armour, was a small round mirror in a black setting. Frowning, Hiccup tried to look more closely at it, but he was pulled away before he got the chance. He doubted that the pricey mirrors they had demanded of Johann would be for decorative purposes.

They were marched inland, in deep cracks between crags of dense volcanic rocks, the path sometimes barely wide enough for two of them to walk abreast. Toothless was muzzled in steel and dragon leather, and his wings were bound to his back with thick ropes, while the Outcasts kept plenty of distance from his tail and led him on by three chains around his shoulders and neck. Not all of the Outcasts would be from Berk, but clearly they all knew how to handle dragons. They were rough with Toothless, but not overly aggressive, and once Toothless still managed to wrench enough rope to himself to look round at Hiccup. All that Hiccup could do was nod for him to continue on, aware of the crossbows still carried and loaded around them, the saddle and tail that Alvin had taken away.

The passages led under bridges and through short tunnels, until eventually they were bought before a huge pair of metal doors. They had the same solid look as the Great Hall back in Berk, but instead of guardians outside there were great fire-dishes of the sort to keep Monstrous Nightmares away. As the group approached, Hiccup quite literally dug in his heels, resisting until the Outcast holding his arm growled unintelligibly and Alvin turned to look.

“What is it now?” said Alvin. “Not claustrophobic, are ya?”

“I’m not entering your halls until I know what you want of me,” said Hiccup. The Outcast on his arm tried another tug, but Hiccup pulled back with as much strength as he could muster and was a little gratified to see the man tugged in his direction instead. The man looked at Alvin with clear frustration.

Alvin sighed. “You really think you’re in a position to bargain?”

“I think you need me for something, and this is a big enough set-up that it isn’t just some hostage situation,” said Hiccup. He tried to read Alvin’s expression, to see whether he was on the right track or not, but it was no easy task. “Besides, whatever it is you want me to do, you’re going to have to tell me eventually. So it might as well be now.”

“You could just be carried in,” said Alvin.

“Or I could walk in willingly,” he replied. “And that would be a lot easier all around. Besides, even if I’m easy to carry, the dragon isn’t.”

He hoped that Toothless would understand, would not resent being used as a threat. But a fighting Night Fury, even one not trying to kill, had proved how dangerous it could be. Hiccup thought that Toothless still had a fair chance of snapping the ropes around him, by muscle alone, but there would be a danger of him hurting his wings along the way. And his tail was not bound either, and Hiccup knew that it was stronger than the Outcasts probably thought.

He had to gamble on how little the Outcasts did know about a Night Fury, how much Berk had learnt in the past year. There was not much other leverage that Hiccup could use.

“All right then,” said Alvin, but his tone suggested this was a curiosity, an experiment. Hiccup immediately felt more wary. “We still have a bit of a dragon problem round here,” he waved to the island behind them, “and you’re gonna help us deal with it. And then you’re going to tell us about your dragon training, and how you and those friends of yours ended up fighting with them.”

“And if I don’t?”

Alvin smiled, and it was like seeing the teeth of a shark. “I don’t think you want to find out what I’m willing to do to persuade you.”

 

 

 

 

 

True to his word, Hiccup walked without protest as they were led through torch-lit, smoke-smelling tunnels. They air felt thick and heavy, never mind the smell of too many people and not enough ventilation, but he did not comment and simply did his best to remember the route that they took. With any luck, Elsa would be learning the path more easily, although Hiccup would admit that luck had been in short supply lately.

Clearly they had adapted the cave system, instead of building in the open air. If they still had a problem with dragons even a year after the fall of the Red Death, then there must have been something else at play, but perhaps it did at least explain their unwillingness to build. A lack of wood must have contributed as well, as many of the tunnels were only closed off with bars or not at all. Hiccup had not seen fields on his way in, but there must have been some cultivatable land, for all the smell of fish in the air which suggested where most of their food came from.

Hiccup did his best not to turn his head as he took the information in, to not gawp too openly. They were marched down tunnel after tunnel; there was a shallow downwards slope, but then again they had needed to climb to enter through the main doors in the first place. Finally, they reached a narrow doorway, and Hiccup and Elsa were pulled to a stop while Toothless was tugged round to the continue along the main tunnel.

“Hey!” said Hiccup. Toothless growled, resisting enough that the Outcasts leading him were tugged completely to a stop. “You didn’t say anything about separating us.”

“You think that I keep humans and dragons in the same sort of cells?” said Alvin. Dragons, plural. That wasn’t good to hear either. “Oh no, I’m not that sort of fool. You’ll see him tomorrow, though, don’t you fret. A live Night Fury is far more use than a dead one.”

“If you’re holding him, I want to see where,” Hiccup said.

“You should be more worried about your own holdings,” said Alvin, voice growing darker. “Now, if you want him to have water today, send him on his way and head to your own cells.”

Hiccup wrenched his hands away from the Outcast. “Let me talk to him. Calm him,” he added, with a challenging look to Alvin. Mercifully, Alvin nodded, and Hiccup walked over, legs feeling weak, to where Toothless was being held.

He had to step over one of the chains in order to reach Toothless’s head, and then knelt down so that they were as close as face-to-face as they could come. The trust in Toothless’s eyes was overwhelming, and made Hiccup feel guiltier than he knew it was possible to feel. He had led them into this. What had happened with the Speed Stingers in the summer might have been a true oversight, but this had been foolishly walking into a trap.

“ _Umasulliiren_ ,” he said softly, stroking Toothless’s cheeks as best he could with his bound hands. He could not apologise in Northur, not let Alvin know what he was saying, but he desperately wanted to say it all the same. As for a promise that he would come back, that he would help… he did not know how to say that in Marulosen, but hoped that Toothless would understand all the same. “I promise,” Hiccup whispered.

Toothless huffed through the leather straps and steel bands about his face, breath warm against Hiccup’s hands, and closed his eyes in a slow beat. A sign of trust, from dragons.

Running his hands over the top of Toothless’s head one last time, he rose to his feet and picked his way out again. “Go on,” he said, with a nod of his head along the larger tunnel. Toothless stared at him for a long moment, then acquiesced, turning away and following the Outcasts down the tunnel so docilely that he could have been a dog on a leash. The chains even fell slack.

The same way that they had walked through the front doors, Hiccup told himself. But he hoped that the Outcasts would not understand that either, would underestimate their intelligence.

“You do have a bond with that creature,” said Alvin, as Hiccup turned back to the smaller door.

Hiccup could not think of a good response, and did his best to look stern.

It made Alvin chuckle. “And there’s your father’s expression. All right, in with them.”

He gestured to the man seated beside the door, who rose without a word, withdrew a small ring of keys from about his person, and unlocked it. Hiccup examined him as best he could: short blond beard, irregularly cropped hair, and a scar that ran down his forehead and seemed to cut his ear almost in half. He was wearing a mail hauberk, but to Hiccup’s eye it had not been cleaned well enough of recent years despite the good-quality material once used. His hands moved slowly, stiffly, and his left glove had only four fingers. Plenty of distinctive features there.

The man with the keys led them through the door, which proved to access a narrow tunnel that the taller Outcasts had to duck below the ceiling of on a couple of occasions. The tunnel was at least ten yards long, before opening into a long, oval cave with a higher ceiling that even let in some light from far above them. Five metal-barred cells had been cut into or shaped from the rock, the doors all of different sizes.

“Him in that one,” said Alvin, pointing out one of the cells, and then another. “And her there.” Hiccup rounded on him, going to protest again, only for Alvin to advance a pace and point his finger right into Hiccup’s face. It would have been a lie to say that he was not momentarily tempted to bite it. “And no arguing about being split up. You should be grateful you can see each other from the doors. Any arguments, I’ll have her taken to another set of cells altogether.”

Hiccup closed his mouth again.

“Good,” Alvin said, before turning to leave. “They can have water tonight.  Swordripper.”

The man with the keys looked up, and Hiccup stored away the name.

“Bull will be taking over from you tonight.”

“Aye, Alvin.”

Without waiting for Alvin to leave, the Outcasts jostled Hiccup and Elsa apart; Swordripper crossed to Elsa’s cell first to unlock it for them. Hiccup could not see her once she was led inside, but there was only quiet and the faint sound of chains, nothing outstanding for a prison. He hated that he had to think of things like that. A moment later, Clenchjaw and Swordripper reappeared, and she left while he moved to Hiccup’s cell and opened it. He did not seem to see, or did not care about, the way that Hiccup was watching him.

The door to the second cell was swung open, to reveal a gloomy inside. It was not until his eyes had finished adjusting that Hiccup realised there was already someone in there, a girl perhaps his age with dark hair and filthy clothes, manacled to the wall.

“What’s happening?” she said, rough-voiced.

“You’re sure about this?” said the Outcast holding Hiccup, completely ignoring the girl.

Swordripper shrugged. “It’s what Alvin said. Maybe he figures the boy should see what happens to prisoners who don’t cooperate.”

With a snort that sounded horribly like laughter, the Outcast pulled Hiccup into the cell and pushed him into a seated position. The ropes on his hands were removed, replaced with chains that locked about his wrists and set in place with another of the key’s from Swordripper’s ring. His feet were left free.

Then both men retreated, locking the cell door behind them, and left the room. If Hiccup leant forwards as far as his chains allowed, he could see them both leave the prison area through the narrow tunnel, and he thought that he heard the sound of the door at the far end closing. Only then did he sit back into a more comfortable position that did not involve kneeling on his metal foot, and turn back to the girl in the cell with him.

Beneath smudges of dirt, she looked quite pale, with expressive green eyes and hair that, unless he was mistaken, was black. Her clothes were simple, unadorned, and he could not guess where she was from just by looking at her. Probably a Viking, though, to judge by her boots. Unless the Outcasts had foisted those upon her.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry about that. Not the best of introductions.”

There was a moment’s paused, but then she huffed, one side of her mouth curling into a smile. “Well, there’s an understatement.”

“My name’s Hiccup,” he said. He was pretty sure that she hadn’t heard Alvin say it. He nodded to the far cell. “And my friend’s name is Elsa.”

“Nice to hear a friendly voice,” she replied. “My name’s Heather. Were you sailing as well?”

He shook his head, and arranged his chains as comfortably as he could. Given the circumstances, he saw no point in putting up with the pain in his leg any longer, and set about taking off his prosthetic foot. Heather watched with interest, but not judgement. More and more probably a Viking.

“Alvin set a trap for us. Well, I think it was for my father, but he’s not going to complain about having me.” He started massaging the stump of his leg.

“Sounds like you’re important to him.”

Hiccup snorted. “Lucky me.”

“Better that than wrong place, wrong time,” said Heather, shrugging. It came with a metallic clink. “I was just trying to get to my parents. Boat wasn’t even that big, but… they said they needed the wood.”

It sounded like what he had heard from Brynnhild, what he had seen on Venomspur’s stripped-out boat. The Outcasts wanted more resources than their island could offer them, and their response had been to turn to piracy. Heather hung her head, looking towards her hands, and Hiccup came to the immediate and firm decision that when he escaped, he was taking her with him. He did not say aloud that she was lucky that she had not been killed as unnecessary, the way that the two men on the other ship had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When my beta reader first read this, she asked whether I was deliberately making Star Wars references with Mark Hamill's character trying to get someone to be his apprentice. I hadn't consciously done it, but the mental image amused me.
> 
> "Alvin the Honest" is inspired by one of the fake names that Alvin uses in the books, "Alvin the Poor-But-Honest Farmer". Obviously I'm not working fully or even mostly from book backstory, but there are references starting to creep in.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the _Outcast Arc_.
> 
>  **Content notes** : Animal cruelty/mistreatment, as well as the captivity of the main characters. These have been noted in Additional Tags. I'm afraid that they're going to be in place for several chapters, and we're about to have a looooong discussion of how to keep reptiles.

With his foot set aside, Hiccup leant so that he could see out through the bars of the cell again, peering towards the one diagonally opposite. “Elsa?” he said, raising his voice as little as he could but as much as he dared. “Can you hear me?”

He heard the sound of chains, and then Elsa came into view, leaning at the waist as well. Not the most dignified method of communication, but he’d take it. “Yes,” she said. “There is someone else with you?”

“Do you have enough range to get to the bars?” he asked Heather, with a nod towards them. Her shake of her head made it clear that she had tried already. “Yeah,” he said to Elsa again. “Another honoured guest of Alvin’s.”

“They are all right?”

By the time that he looked round to Heather, she had already raised an eyebrow wryly. “I’ve been better,” she said, before he even needed to ask.

“About as good as we are,” he relayed, and saw the line of Elsa’s shoulders soften. She had seen Venomspur as well. “How’s the, uh,” he deliberately did not glance at Heather that time, before swapping to Marulosen. “ _tiigian_?”

He wasn’t offended when he saw, from the corner of his eye, Heather look at him curiously. Elsa hesitated, and even across the distance he could see the curling in of her posture, the uncertainty, but then she shifted her hands with a jingle of chains and there was a momentary flicker of blue-white light.

It only lasted an instant. Elsa clutched at her chest, vanishing from view, and Hiccup lunged towards the bars without thinking and only wrenched a shoulder for his difficulty. Each heartbeat felt overly long until she came back into view again, seemingly paler against the dark rock.

“No,” she said. It was enough.

“It’s all right,” said Hiccup. We’ll figure this out.”

It was quite impressive how even in the circumstances, she managed to give him a quite disbelieving look across the distance. Hiccup held her gaze, until she shifted again and leant against the bars. Either a smaller cell or longer chains, he supposed, and wondered whether that was really something that it was justified to be jealous of.

“Is your friend all right?” Heather said.

“Yes,” he said, hoping it was not a lie. “Just making sure she wasn’t hurt when we got taken.”

“Trap, taken,” said Heather, “everything you say makes it sound more impressive.”

“It really wasn’t.” Flying two days just to walk into a trap, and then spending most of another two days sailing most of the way back again, could hardly be described as some sort of terrible battle. Alvin was certainly spicing things up with the cells, though. “I thought I was going to find someone who had information, but Alvin and his men were waiting for us instead. Now we’re here,” he waved vaguely, “Toothless is gods know where, and I… have no ideas just yet.”

“Toothless?”

Even if they were in the same cell, he had to remind himself, Heather was a stranger from an unknown island. “There were three of us. They must have taken him elsewhere.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, it would probably be crowded with three of us in here,” he said, earning another momentary smile. In all honesty, Toothless would not be able to stretch out his tail to its full length within the walls of one of these cells. Hopefully wherever he was being held was larger and, at the very least, no worse than this. Bare rock would be less of a problem for a dragon than it was for humans, at the very least. “Were you travelling alone? This late in the season?”

Heather looked sheepish. “I wanted to get to my parents before winter came. I was only island-hopping, not sailing if the weather was looking too bad. But you’re right,” she shrugged, “it was probably pretty dumb.”

“Sounds like perfectly good Viking behaviour to me.” He’d known people sail in worse, especially since fair sailing weather seemed to be holding remarkably well so far. Wiser than the Outcasts sailing through the night, as well. “So;” he sat back, tucking his prosthetic into his lap where he could keep a hand on it at all times. It should have been cleaned after the time at sea, but somehow he doubted he would be able to get that from Alvin. “What do you do around here for fun?”

For a moment, Heather looked at him in bewilderment. Hiccup was perfectly used to the look, the sort of vague questioning of whether he had finally lost whatever sliver of sanity the average Berkian possessed, but then he saw realisation dawn and she burst out laughing. The sound was almost ringing-loud in the confined space, but there was something quite gratifying about it, and even afterwards she was still smiling.

A distant sound filtered down through the narrow hole in the ceiling, and Hiccup looked round curiously. It was now almost completely dark outside, the brazier in the centre of the cells the only real light remaining.

“Rain probably gets in through that, huh?” he said, eyeing the gap.

“If you’re lucky, it doesn’t run through the cell,” Heather replied.

Oh, great. Sitting or lying on bare stone would be one thing, but trying to do so on bare wet stone would be a significantly more unpleasant experience. Hiccup grimaced and peered back at the hole, trying to judge from the gloom outside how heavy the rain was likely to be. A pretty futile exercise, this near to Berk, unless the answer was ‘considerable’, but at least it kept his mind occupied for a moment.

“Then again, if you’re _un_ lucky…” Heather said.

“You get a wet backside?”

Before Heather could even dignify his sarcastic comment with a response, flame licked around the hole in the ceiling. Hiccup jerked back without even thinking, eyes going wide.

“The dragons remember where the hole is,” finished Heather flatly.

“Wait, is this still a _regular_ thing?” Alvin had said that there were dragon attacks on the island, but Hiccup had supposed that they were still relatively sparse. “How long have you been here?”

“Maybe… half a moon? Less?” said Heather, but she didn’t sound in the least bit sure of it. She shook her head. “I don’t really have a way of keeping count or marking anything. But they’ve attacked… five times, I think.”

Even at its worst, Berk had not faced that sort of onslaught. And it was not as if the dragons could be after food stocks or sheep. Hiccup shook his head, but it was more confusion than disbelief, and looked back to see the dark sky and the occasional light cast from the flames outside. If he concentrated, he could her the roars and barks of dragons above the storm.

“Do you know what _types_ of dragons?”

Heather snorted. “All I see is the fire from time to time.”

“That would still tell us something.” Between the storm and the rocky ceiling, it was harder to distinguish exactly what dragons they were by the sound of their cries alone, but the fire had been reddish-orange. That meant it wasn’t a Nadder, or a Changewing with their acid, for a start.

He did want to stop the attacks. But not for the sake of Alvin, nor the Outcasts generally; it was the dragons that would be taking the worst damage, ten killed for every man they harmed, most of their injuries probably leading to death through starvation anyway. Hiccup nipped at the inside of his own lip as he watched the rock, waiting for the next hint of what might be out there.

“So, what does Alvin want from you?” said Heather. “You said it was you personally, right?”

“He thinks I can teach him more about dragons,” he replied.

“And can you?”

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she was interested, he supposed. Dragons still fascinated and scared people, and Hiccup knew that his fascination was no less strong. “I’m not sure that Alvin wants to learn what I could teach,” he said, and almost wished that one of the Outcasts was there to hear the scathing tone of voice.

 

 

 

 

 

It did indeed rain heavily, and it did indeed run right through the centre of their cell, leaving Hiccup to learn that Heather had figured out exactly what the highest part of the floor was and smartly chosen to sit upon it. His chains wouldn’t have let him reach it anyway, but she still wryly thanked him for being such a gentleman. When he checked in with Elsa, she said that her cell was fairly dry, but considering he lied in response and said there was only a bit of damp in one corner he had no idea how truthful she was being.

He did not so much sleep as drowse, catching occasional moments here and there where his brain stopped whirring to recognise dragonfire and exhaustion got the better of worry and damp. He sat on his right leg, keeping his left as dry as possible more from habit than any real lingering worry about the scar tissue, and tucked his prosthetic beneath his vest where it would have the best chance possible of keeping dry. The last thing he needed right now was a rusted foot.

The attack seemed to go on for hours, considerably longer than Berk tended to endure. Or perhaps he should have called the Berk ones _raids_ , Hiccup decided in the depths of the night when there was nothing else to occupy his mind, because they had been more about taking supplies than doing real damage. Even when the sky outside grew quiet, the sounds of movement echoed down the rocky tunnels of Outcast Island, and Hiccup was pretty sure that he heard Alvin’s voice among the sounds. As much as Hiccup appreciated knowing that Alvin was angry, he did not think that it boded particularly well for their coming day.

It did not seem to take long for the sky to begin to lighten. That was not a good sign at this time of year, either. As soon as he thought that there were footsteps coming their way, he set about putting his foot back on again, wiping his leg with the driest part of his sleeve, and was just putting his legging back into place as the door to the cells opened.

Opened was probably something of an understatement; the door slammed back, and across the cell Heather started, jumping from where she had been leaning against the wall. Hiccup had not even realised that she had dozed off in turn.

This time, the man with the keys was short and broad, with three-quarters of a good beard streaked with grey and a nose that had been broken and set terribly. He carried a bucket, and at a wave from Alvin stomped over towards Elsa’s cell with it.

Hiccup’s eyes narrowed. Last summer, in the arena, he had more than once thrown buckets of water over dragons, and worried even then whether or not they disliked it. In the year since, it had become clear that most dragons frankly appreciated the water, so long as it was clean and did not get in their eyes. But at the time it had been a way of cleaning them, and of rinsing the floor of the cells on the days when they were not to be properly scrubbed.

He could not say that he trusted the Outcasts to treat their prisoners better than Berk had treated the dragons.

He was relieved, although not exactly feeling charitable enough to be grateful, when the man merely set the bucket down outside Elsa’s cell, scooped up a cup of water, and handed it in. There was a long still moment without, it seemed, any response from Elsa.

As Alvin closed in, Hiccup craned his neck, trying to peer around him. But Alvin planted himself firmly in Hiccup’s view, with a glower down that was almost a physical force.

“All right, boy. Time for you to make yourself useful.”

“Berk’s been trying to find a use for me for fifteen years,” he responded, only reluctantly looking up at Alvin’s face. “I’m not sure how successful you’ll be in one day.”

“Very funny. I’ve no doubt you got a little taste of our vermin last night;” Hiccup had to force back his anger at the word on Alvin’s lips. “So you’re going to come out and tell us what you learnt from it.”

The other man appeared at Alvin’s shoulder, then stepped round without a word and crouched down again. From the corner of his eye, Hiccup noted that the water at least looked clean as the man filled the cup and thrust it through the bars in Hiccup’s general direction.

When Hiccup ignored the water, Alvin rolled his eyes. “I’d advise you take it. This is for your cooperation yesterday evening. You’ve yet to earn your ration for today.”

It was an efficient threat, Hiccup had to say that. People could hold out for a day, maybe two, but by the third they would be too desperate to continue doing so. Just enough time to let them exercise their defiance, before making it clear what a bad idea defiance was.

He took the water, and had just raised it to his lips enough to sip at it when he saw the fixed way that Heather was watching. Despite his dry throat, Hiccup kept it to a sip, and then passed the cup across to her. “It’s fresh,” he said.

“Hey!” protested the man with the bucket. Well, he did have a voice then. “That ain’t hers!”

“Oh, let him play the martyr,” said Alvin, with a dismissive wave of his hand. Barely had the words left his lips when Heather grabbed the cup from Hiccup’s hand and downed it. “He’ll regret it come day’s end.”

Heather passed the cup back to Hiccup, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist and then pressing her lips to the skin to catch the stray moisture there. Perhaps half a moon, she had said. That was long enough even for reduced water each day to be taking their toll. Hiccup kept hold of the cup for the moment, eyeing Alvin. “And her portion?”

He did not miss the way that the other man looked up at Alvin, but Alvin just huffed, apparently amused. “Why not?” he said. “If that’s the Dragon Conqueror’s idea of a bargaining chip…”

Hiccup’s cheeks grew hot; now, the name really was humiliating to hear. But he held Alvin’s eye as he passed the cup over to be refilled, and almost snatched it from the man’s hand to give it to Heather again. Alvin watched impassively, and Hiccup had the sense that he was making note of every detail, every small movement that they made, in the chance that it might be of use to him.

“So,” said Hiccup, tossing the cup into the bucket. It went in, which at least made the showing off feel a little more justified, “am I conducting my lessons here, or have you put together a school for your men?”

“Get him out,” said Alvin to the other man, who hurried to comply. Hiccup obligingly held out his hands for the manacles to be removed, but could not dodge from being forcibly pulled to his feet. One damp leg and one unenthusiastic stump made it a fight not to stumble as he stepped out of the cell, with one last worried glance at Heather. She looked more grateful than it felt like he deserved. “You are showing me your tricks, Hiccup.”

“And Elsa?” he did his best to look defiant, even dirty and sleepless.

Alvin did not seem surprised by the response. “You get to see _one_ of your little friends today. And if you don’t choose her, she stays nice and safe in her cell.”

That had been his biggest worry, letting Elsa out of his sight. “I’d ask for your word, but I’m not sure how much that would be worth,” said Hiccup.

 “Twenty-five years of honesty, and one treachery. What do you think your odds are?”

He really did not like the thought of playing games of chance with someone like Alvin. Someone who, unless Hiccup was sorely mistaken, had enough brains and little enough fealty that he would almost certainly try to tip the scales in his own favour.

“Hiccup,” said Elsa. His head snapped round. She was sitting cross-legged in her cell, back to the wall and hands in her lap, looking not comfortable but far from terrified. Calm, at least. “Go to Toothless. I will be all right.”

“And there you have the lady’s word as well,” said Alvin. “You know full well that if I wanted her dead, she would be. So why would I bother lying about this?”

“Well, I try not to make a habit of underestimating people,” Hiccup said. But it was Elsa’s words that made the decision clear enough; he would see her again come nightfall, he had no doubt of that, and she would be able to relay anything that happened to him. And Alvin, for all his flaws, certainly did not seem to be prone to the sort of fits of anger that would send Dagur to drawing his sword.

It seemed that Alvin correctly interpreted his silence, though, as he gave Hiccup a shove towards the outer door. Hiccup caught himself and complied, keeping his hands by his sides in the vague sort of hope that it would not draw attention to the fact that they had been left untied. Although he suspected that was deliberate anyway.

Alvin caught him by the shoulder as they reached the main tunnels again, and Hiccup sighed but did not waste time turning it into some sort of struggle. “So,” he said, as their new jailer locked the door, “what have you done that’s been getting the dragons so angry, Alvin?”

“Me?”

Alvin sounded genuinely surprised, and more than a little insulted. It was a far more vehement response than Hiccup had expected, and he was a little disappointed in himself to realise how interested that made him.

“Berk has had one attack in the last year,” he said, pushing the point further. He saw Alvin’s brow settle back into the familiar scowl, but he wondered if there was a touch of uncertainty there now. “From what the girl in the cells told me, you’re getting them as frequently as in the worst years, when Stoick first became chief. So has that been going all for the past year, or is it a more recent development?”

Still scowling. But to be honest, Hiccup suspected he could consider that Alvin’s default facial expression. He saw far more in the stretched out seconds of silence.

“You don’t know, and your men don’t know,” said Hiccup, dropping his voice to a more level, reasonable tone. Gods, he really had heard his father do this too many times. “But I might. Have the dragon attacks been this severe all along?”

“No,” said Alvin finally. “They started at the height of the summer.”

“And what changed, at the height of the summer?” Alvin scoffed, and Hiccup clenched one fist. “Alvin, dragons don’t do things for no reason. They have reasons just like men do, just like animals do. We accept there’s a reason for a rabbit to act the way it does, and believe me, a dragon is a lot smarter.”

“A lot changed over the summer,” Alvin said, and the sheer uselessness of the statement made Hiccup sigh. “You’ll see some of it. Come on.”

At least he was turning in the direction in which they had taken Toothless. Hiccup could only consider that a good start.

 

 

 

 

 

The previous day, there had been guards as well as Alvin, and their hands had been kept tied. Hiccup wondered how many reasons there were behind the differences as he walked at Alvin’s elbow down torch-lit corridors. Even though he knew that it was morning, time felt pretty meaningless in a place like this.

“We’ve got ourselves some dragons,” said Alvin, as they turned another corner. “And you’re going to put a stop to their bad behaviour.”

He was about to ask when Alvin intended to improve his own behaviour, but they turned into a narrower corridor and Hiccup’s head spun. He grabbed at the wall to stay upright, hunger making his knees weak but bad air and the smell of uncared-for dragons making the world seem to lurch around him. He could smell the bad conditions, the unhealthy dragons, and feel it like a weight in his gut. He already feared well enough what he was about to walk into, before he even pushed back upright with gritted teeth. Alvin had stopped, and did not look angry or even as amused as Hiccup might have expected, just curious at the whole idea.

Hiccup clenched both of his fists, and walked. The smell of unhealthy dragon, of uncleaned wounds and droppings that spoke of digestive problems, stung in his throat and throbbed in his head. Even in the days of the arena, they had kept watch to make sure the dragons had been in passably good health. Gobber had warned him how to watch out for things like this.

The tunnel opened up into another larger cave, like the one which Hiccup and Elsa had been taken to but on a much larger scale. The bars on the cells were more widely spaced, and though the first one stood empty with the iron bars exposed; the ones after that had the bars wrapped in dragonskin. One more line of defence against the dragons getting out, he supposed.

He did not have to take a step to know why the dragons were behaving the way that they did, why they were angry and hurt and just wanting to be free again. He probably could have told Alvin most of it without even leaving his own cell. But he had needed to see this, to be sure.

“You need me to _tell_ you why you’re getting ‘bad behaviour’?” he said to Alvin, with every ounce of disrespect he had ever learnt.

Alvin grabbed him by the shoulder, hard enough to hurt this time over what already felt like developing bruises, and bent down to hiss into his ear. “Why don’t you cut out your rhetoric, boy, and say something useful?”

He clenched his teeth, not just to avoid another snapped response but in defiance of answering while Alvin was trying to haul him around. Only when Alvin pulled back and released him did Hiccup brush off his shoulder and respond.

“It smells like shit down here, Alvin,” he said flatly. Enough of following Stoick’s example; it was time to draw a little on Gobber’s instead. “A dragon’s nose is a dozen times better than a human’s; what do you think it smells like to them? How deep is the rock above this cave?”

Now, Alvin was looking at him as if he might have lost his mind, but if Hiccup was acting unpredictably then that might just have been a good thing. “How should I know?”

“It’s your island, supposedly,” said Hiccup. He did not give Alvin a chance to say anything else. “Give me a Nadder and enough time for one of your men to use the privy, and I can have an airhole that’ll make it a lot nicer for anyone so much as visiting here. One of your men should be mucking out those pens every other day at least, and scrubbing them with soapy water twice a moon. How much are you feeding them?”

“What they need,” Alvin retorted.

“I doubt it. They should be getting two pounds of fish per tonne of weight per day, give or take depending on their species.” He caught the flicker of surprise in Alvin’s expression, behind the anger that Hiccup was daring to question and correct him. “Good fish, as well, not rotting or sick themselves. That’s two pounds for a Nadder, six pounds for a Gronckle or a Monstrous Nightmare. Are they getting that much?”

Alvin scowled at him; Hiccup read this particular scowl to mean that he was not going to get a reply.

“What would humans do if you locked them in their own shit and didn’t feed them properly?” said Hiccup, with a sweep of his arm to the cells. He had not even looked in them yet, desperately did not want to see what would be waiting for him but knew that he would have to. It was an absurd situation; he did not want to be teaching Alvin about dragons, but wanted even less to risk leaving dragons like this, or having Alvin keep more dragons in this manner once he was gone. “What did you do to try to improve their behaviour _before_ kidnapping me, Alvin? Beat them? Starve them? Deprive _them_ of water? You’re not a complete idiot, you must know better than to do that with your men or they wouldn’t follow you. So why did you try it with dragons?”

At least in Berk, they had been trying to drive the dragons _away_ by mistreating them, not claim their allegiance. As the words grew and took on a life of their own, Hiccup felt giddy beneath them, but kept his look as stern as he could make it.

“They’re animals,” said Alvin. “Not men.”

It sounded defensive, though, and at least he had not called them _dumb_ animals. “If you kick a dog, would you be surprised if it bit you?” said Hiccup. “Nobody in their right mind would keep _slaves_ in conditions like this.”

“And that’ll make them fly, will it?” said Alvin. It was more a taunt than a genuine question, though, Hiccup could hear that much. “That’ll make them fight for us.”

“No.”

He dropped the word, let it hang in the air, stretching out the seconds with Alvin looking too shocked to reply.

“The bond with the dragons – my bond,” he put a hand to his own chest, “with Toothless? That’s not about food or water or where the dragon sleeps. It’s a state of mind. You don’t want to learn that, Alvin, you want to learn some magical trick to make the dragons obey you. And it just doesn’t work like that.”

Alvin’s scowl deepened, something in his eyes closing off, and for a moment Hiccup thought that he might have overstepped his bounds. Not just overstepped them, but gone galumphing off into the distance with a cackle of laughter. He had spoken without really thinking, all over again, and it seemed that every time he had done so over the last few days, Alvin had been the one to benefit from it.

This time, though, Alvin did not react immediately, and even in the oppressive stinking heat the only way to describe the silence in the air between them was _cold_.

“Well then,” said Alvin finally. “Let’s see what you make of the dragons themselves.”

Nothing good, Hiccup was already quite sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Alvin put a hand between Hiccup’s shoulders to steer him over to the first cell, planting him in front of it. “Well?” he said, before Hiccup even had time to draw breath.

“Well what?”

“You tell me what you see,” said Alvin.

Hiccup clenched his jaw as he peered into the gloomy cell. “Gronckle,” he said, “not quite fully grown. Multiple scars, from sharp weapons,” his eyes panned over the dragon, who was watching him without malice but with a sort of resigned distaste that seemed worse, “missing toes, either from fighting or from inadequate water availability during the last shed. For a Gronckle, at least five hundred pounds underweight. Dull skin, more missing teeth than there should be at any one time.”

He turned to Alvin.

“I’d say you caught them in the spring, haven’t given them enough food or sunlight, didn’t know what to do about their shed during the summer, and probably didn’t even know that Gronckles _need_ to eat rocks and don’t just do it for battle. Does that about sum it up? If you want me to check for parasites, I’d need to get in the pen with them.”

“You knew all that from one look,” said Alvin, folding his huge arms across his chest. The tone was derisive, but Hiccup thought that there was a flicker of interest there.

“I could have told you most of that last year, when I was an apprentice sweeping up leaves and dung every morning,” he retorted.

Dragons may have been reptiles, and quite unlike those animals that were kept for food, but Hiccup realised either there wasn’t experience of animal-keeping on Outcast Island, or they had completely failed to apply it to the matter of the dragons. Every farmer with half a dozen sheep could spot a sick animal from the way it stood; most children on Berk knew to watch out for the small white fragments of worms in the droppings of any animal they came close to. At least, they did if their families were farmers, or in the business of animals at all.

The population of Outcast Island came from a dozen different islands, but a solid number of them were from Berk. There had not been an exiling, other than Mildew’s, in a number of years, and even Alvin would be among the younger of the Berkians that were here. But they were probably fighters, the sort who might have the physical abilities for the violent attacks that usually led to this place. Clearly they had enough skill with fishing to survive, but if there were few or none among them with good experience of livestock then it said a lot more than Alvin had intended.

“The next one,” Alvin growled, with a pointed shove to Hiccup’s shoulder.

“Male Nadder, older – no,” he corrected himself, “younger adult, but miscare is making him look older. Underweight again. More missing teeth. Weakness in the right leg, probably an injury to the foot, and misshapen tip of the left wing,” he pointed without thinking, as if Alvin was not aware. “That and flakiness of the spines point to wrong food as well. He needs more bones, or limestone or chalk to scrape. Irregular breathing suggests sickness in his lungs. Same story as the Gronckle, but the food problems have taken more of a physical toll.”

Another shove, another cell. This time, Alvin did not even have to ask, as Hiccup felt the horror and anger seeping into his bones like a liquid heat.

“Monstrous Nightmare,” he said. This one was shackled most of all, bound to the ground with chains, head elevated and mouth tilted forwards, head in place on a wooden stock. “And where you got the gel last autumn.”

Alvin snorted. “Close, but different beast. The first didn’t live that long.”

Another dead dragon, more unnecessary than ever. Hiccup closed his eyes, trying to will away the oppressive air and the heavy feeling of death, at least for a moment. It was not particularly successful, and things did not much improve again when he had to open his eyes to Alvin.

“Monstrous Nightmare,” he said again, more coldly. “Not fully grown. Those chains will start cutting in if you wait for too long. Male. Same as the others – underweight, poor scale condition. By the look of his left eye, he’s retained part of his shed there since the summer, and none of you knew to do anything about it.” Or thought to, perhaps. “From how he’s holding his jaw, he’s got mouth rot, and that’s not been treated either. It could kill him in a couple of moons. Might well do if your men are left with it.”

The anger felt like a living thing in his chest, pressing on his heart and lungs until he could hear his pulse in his ears and it felt difficult to breath. He wanted these dragons _out_ ; he wanted them back on Berk, where he could care for them, where he could show them that humans were not all like this. But perhaps worse was the feeling that even if he were to empty every cell, Alvin would just reach out for more. The only ways to stop this would be to stop Alvin from wanting dragons, or at least have him treat the dragons better. Hiccup did not want dragons in places like Alvin’s cells, but if he could not stop Alvin, then he could not help but wonder whether it would be better to at least show him how it should be done.

“Do your men even agree with you?” he said. “Do they even want the dragons here?”

“Why?” said Alvin. “Trying to gauge whether killing me will put an end to this?”

That was not what Hiccup had meant. At least, he was mostly sure that was not what he had meant. When Alvin asked, he was suddenly uncertain, suddenly worried that the thought might have been bubbling underneath the surface of his mind. “No,” said Hiccup. He wasn’t sure if it sounded convincing. “Just whether they’re likely to improve their actions if you tell them to.”

“My men follow me,” said Alvin.

“One day, Alvin, you’ll find a traitor of your own.”

Alvin leant down so that they were almost eye-to-eye. “A treacherous man knows better than to surround himself with traitors,” he replied. For that, Hiccup had no retort. He was almost impressed, truth be told. Instead he turned, and without waiting for Alvin crossed to the next pen.

“Toothless…” it came out a wheeze, and he strode right up to the bars. Toothless was bound worse than even the Nightmare, hoisted up so that his back was against a stone pillar, his wings and legs bound to his body and all of his weight on the thick leather and iron straps that kept him on the pillar. There were chains running from his wrists and ankles to the floor, and his tail lashed free but was curved roughly down in a way that would be painful. The muzzle over his mouth had been covered with a sort of bag of dragon leather, but there had to be holes for him to be breathing at all.

Toothless’s eyes snapped open as Hiccup came into view, and his flaps twitched. He rumbled, so deep it was barely audible, and looked straight into Hiccup’s eyes.

“ _Umasulliren_ ,” Hiccup breathed.

“Any more dietary requirements you’d like to inform us of?” said Alvin. Hiccup’s hands, which had been resting on the bars, tightened around them until it seemed that he could feel the rough stitches in the dragon leather biting into his palms. “Make sure we don’t feed _him_ wrongly?”

The thought of Toothless like the other dragons that he had seen made everything in Hiccup’s head blur and white-out, blizzard-thick with anger. Again he had to close his eyes, and wished that he could reach out to Toothless, curl against his side or at least touch fingertips to his nose, and apologise more and more for what he had done, or failed to do.

“There’s nothing that’s particular to Night Furies,” said Hiccup, eyes still closed. When he opened them, Toothless was still looking at him, two brilliant green eyes against the dark of his skin and the gloom of the cell. Even the muzzle, dark green, was lighter than him. “They’re like the other dragons.”

“Hmm.” It wasn’t much more than a grunt. Alvin’s hand came to rest on Hiccup’s shoulder again – resting, not grabbing, and somehow that felt worse – but Hiccup refused to look back. “Well then, looks like you’d best be sharing your knowledge sooner rather than later.”

Now the fingers curled to put pressure on Hiccup’s skin, pulling him away from where he stood. The only way that he could make himself do so was the knowledge that there were more dragons to be seen. He hoped, to be helped.

He still shook off Alvin’s hand as he made his way along. The next cell was darker again, but the dragon less so, and he saw it in an instant. Hiccup stopped in his tracks, frowning, at the sight of them. They were not one that he had seen before; they stood on two legs, with short forelimbs tucked to their chest and separate from their claw-tipped wings. The long whipping tail ended in a single, upward-pointing frill, but weirder still was the broad bony fin that surmounted their head like a crown, fanning out and extending back at least a yard.

“What’s this?” said Alvin. “No clever comments?”

Hiccup was already trying to come up with one when the dragon got even stranger. Their hide was soft purple, with irregular blue patches and the fin fading almost to pink as it went back. But as Hiccup watched, the purple flushed increasingly red, and smears of red seemed to spread across their scales like flowing blood.

“Where did you get that?” said Hiccup. The look of it was almost familiar, but he could not put his finger on the name that had come with it. They were not a Changewing, the size and shape and everything was wrong, and they looked to be using their colour-changing abilities for something else entirely.

“Never you mind,” Alvin said. “So it’s a new dragon to you, huh?”

Not sure how he could deny it and make it sound convincing, Hiccup said nothing.

“Well then, isn’t this the real test. What can you see?”

Hiccup’s left hand curled into a fist, and he wondered for a moment whether it would be possible to somehow incapacitate Alvin. The bars of the dragons’ cells were larger, and he might just be able to squeeze through one of the bigger gaps. With Toothless free, they would have the firepower to get the Nadder out, and then his hot fire would be all that they would need to melt through the ceiling and be away.

But incapacitating Alvin was not an option. Even Astrid, with all her fighting ability, had only been able to knock Alvin back for a moment, long enough for them to get away. Elsa’s ice might have been enough, but Alvin had done _something_ that stopped her from being able to use it. He was not sure what part made him angrier: that it was now, when she was finally comfortable with it; or that it was something that clearly caused her pain when she tried, and not something as benign as trollwort.

He needed to think, but it felt as if his brain had been stuttering all night. Knowing exactly what dragons were here would help, had to, but he was not yet sure exactly how he was going to go about it.

“Dry skin, a little underweight, but nowhere near as bad as the others,” he said, fixing his eyes on the dragon again. “You’ve had them less time.”

The red continued to swirl across the dragon’s skin, and Hiccup felt anger flare again inside him. This time, though, there was something strange about it, foreign; the closest that he could get would be to describe it as being like the anger that had sometimes rushed through him in the first few moons after his fall with the Red Death, the fury that had come seemingly from nowhere and pounded in time with the pains in his head. Only this anger felt deeper, more raw, shot through with fear and resentment and directed at everything, not just Alvin.

The dragon’s eyes met Hiccup’s, and the anger hit him like a wall, hard enough to actually knock his breath from his lungs and almost make him stumble. It was like nothing he’d felt, so strong that it seemed to fill his head, as if it was pushing out everything that was him in order to make room for the rage and pain and fear. Hiccup tried to breathe in, but could not for a moment, and as his eyes watered he saw the dragon take in a breath and then, only then, was he able to breathe in as well.

The force around his chest released, and he panted for breath, head still spinning. He put one hand against the bars, at least in part to support himself, and waited for the dragon to look away and close their eyes again.

Whatever the dragon was, they could not be allowed to remain with Alvin.

“Hiccup? Hiccup, snap out of it!”

Alvin’s words seemed to swim back into focus in his head, and a hand slammed against his shoulder. “I’m not in anything to snap out of,” said Hiccup.

Alvin made a vague grumbling sound that might have been a growl, or might have been a groan. “This time, I’ll be the one to give you a tip. Two of my men have tried to guard that one, and none of them have been able to stand it. So I suggest you take it carefully as well.”

He could well imagine why.

The next cell contained another Nadder, in almost as bad a condition as the first, and the one after had a Gronckle so old that it showed, in scars and dulled skin and weary eyes. All they should have been doing was lying in the sun and eating fish and rocks, and instead they were chained down as much as any of the young dragons.

When Hiccup started towards the final cell, he felt a hesitation in Alvin’s pace, and seized the opportunity to look bolder than he felt and stride carelessly towards it. A snarl sounded from the cell – furthest from the torches and darkest – and Hiccup had to blink a few times before he saw the deep, jewel-red skin of a Scauldron, body disappearing into a pool of water while the neck and head were chained and strapped to the floor outside. As Hiccup stepped into view, they hissed, all rattling tongue, and Hiccup went to dodge back before realising just why they had been chained in such a manner.

Alvin appeared beside him, a bucket of water in his hands, and threw it over the Scauldron’s head. The Scauldron writhed, sending the water in their pool splashing about, but they must have been chained and strapped even beneath the surface.

“So you figured out that Tidal Class dragons have to stay wet,” said Hiccup. “How many dead dragons did that take you?”

Alvin looked at him flatly. “You ain’t nothing but ninety pounds of pegleg and sarcastic comments, huh?”

To be honest, he’d had worse descriptions.

“So, you’ve had my opinion,” said Hiccup, “what do you want now?”

“To make them work for _us_ ,” Alvin replied.

He shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? It isn’t working _for_ you. It never is. It would be working _with_ you, if it were anything. You can clean these cells and feed them what they need and let me in to clean out their wounds, but that isn’t going to make them fight for you, because you aren’t willing to fight for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word "galumphing" is a total anachronism in this setting, but I couldn't find another one that fit better.
> 
> "Ninety pounds of pegleg and sarcastic comments", on the other hand, might be my favourite description of Hiccup that I've ever produced.
> 
> The calculation of two pounds of fish per tonne of dragon is based on something between reptile calculations and bird calculations, closer to the reptile end. Dragons are much faster-moving (and more constantly moving) than many reptiles, but I figured that they don't need to be warm-blooded since they can produce their own heat through whatever system they use to break down the materials and produce fire. Using bird measurements, it would be something closer to 30lbs a day for a Nadder alone!
> 
> I actually wrote this well before _Stryke Out_ happened, so that was certainly interesting to watch!
> 
> ETA: Gone back and checked my pronouns on the dragons, whoops. I have a habit of slipping to 'she' if I'm not careful - I think I imprinted on the T-Rex from Jurassic Park at a young age...


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing look at animal mistreatment, and heading into a detailed study of how to actually keep reptiles.

After everything that he had said, Hiccup would not have been the least bit surprised were he forcibly returned to his cell and left there until he reconsidered the amount of time that he spent answering back. It would have taken a while. But instead, Alvin ordered his men to bring buckets of water, soap, and what fish and carcasses they had. Hiccup had to admit that he was impressed with how immediately the men complied, without even a raised eyebrow or look of confusion, and before long the fire in the room had been stoked, men had been sent onto the surface to scout out the depth of the rock above them, and two men with particularly impressive scowls were standing by with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. From the way that Alvin looked at them, they had probably been chosen as punishment.

“Go on,” said Alvin, seating himself in the chair that had also been bought in. “Get started. Your call where you begin. You say what you want done, I’ll tell you whether my men will be doing it.”

Again, his instincts clashed, not wanting to give Alvin anything but wanting, desperately, to help the dragons who were the ones most hurt by everything that had happened. If Alvin thought that the dragons were something to be _controlled_ , to be _used_ , there was nothing to be done to help that, but the least that he could do was try to save the lives of the dragons currently being held.

He was still trying to work out how to take them with him. Having them in better health would make that easier, as well.

“Fine,” said Hiccup. He started rolling up his sleeves. “That Nadder,” he nodded to the first one they had seen, “and the Monstrous Nightmare are your worst-off. They’re sick, and they’ll wind up dead if you don’t do something about it soon.”

“And what would you suggest?” said Alvin. There was still a touch of mockery about his voice, just enough to grate on Hiccup’s mind and set his teeth on edge, but far more worrying was the quietly interested way that he was taking it all in, comfortable on his chair.

Hiccup looked between the Nadder and the Monstrous Nightmare. The mouth rot would be easier to address, if he could get the Nightmare to open his mouth. “The Nightmare,” he said. “Let me into his cell.”

“There’ll be no unchaining it,” said Alvin.

He nodded. For now, that was not what he needed.

Alvin waved for one of the men by the wheelbarrow to unlock the cell door, and it took both of them to haul it open with a grating sound.

“Your hinges need oiling, by the way,” said Hiccup. From the corner of his eye, he saw Alvin’s weary look. But it really was uncomfortable, after all his years at the forge, to hear hinges so mistreated.

He forced away his anger, and breathed deeply, setting his eyes on those of the Monstrous Nightmare. They preferred eye contact, confidence, dropped surprisingly easily into a submissive mindset even when faced with a human so much smaller than them. Hiccup settled his body language into something calm and assertive, even if that was about the furthest thing from what he currently felt, and stepped up to the door of the cell.

“One thing you’ll be glad to hear,” said Alvin abruptly; Hiccup jumped, and turned to glare. “Is that we’ve gotten them used to your smell already. Long story,” he added, then nodded to the Monstrous Nightmare. “Though I’d be careful with that one. He tried to eat the shirt.”

And that would be why Johann had been after something that smelt of Hiccup. Not for the first time, Hiccup cursed himself for trying to be clever as he turned back to the pens. “Delightful,” he said flatly.

Hopefully he would not need it, at least. Though these dragons were more dangerous; they would know now that humans brought pain and hunger and suffering, and had little or no reason to think that Hiccup would be any different. All that he could do was trust them, and show that he was.

He looked straight into the Nightmare’s eyes again, waited until the huge dragon had drawn a couple of breaths, then raised his hand and walked in. As he drew closer, he slowed, gauging the distance of movement that the Nightmare had within his chains and letting his hand stop inside that distance, a few inches away from his nose. He felt the rush of the dragon’s breath. There was a dragged-out pause, longer than Hiccup had experienced with a dragon before, but finally the Nightmare stretched out his neck and let his nose brush against Hiccup’s hand.

“There we go,” he breathed, meant for no-one but him and the dragon, and dropped down to one knee in front of him. He tested the leather and steel of the muzzle, trying to slip his fingers beneath, but it was too tight. The scales had been bent beneath it, and the angle was forcing some of them apart, exposing the skin beneath.

He did not look round as he raised his voice to address Alvin. It was not as if there was any doubt that the man would be listening.

“This muzzle needs to be made bigger. He’s still growing. Leaving it on will cut into his skin.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Alvin, in a tone which told Hiccup to get on with things. Hiccup gritted his teeth.

“And there’s signs of mites around his eyes. If he’s got them, all the dragons probably have them. They usually handle it by burning them off, especially Nightmares.”

“If you think I’m letting that beast set himself on fire again, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Hiccup shrugged, tempted to throw his hands in the air. “Do you want them healthy or not, Alvin?”

“I want them working,” said Alvin. “Healthy would be a bonus, but they’re replaceable. Especially when they’re not being too helpful in the first place.”

It was like beating his head on a stone wall. Only worse, actually, considering Stoick had tales of hitting his head on rocks and the rock, rather than his head, giving way. Hiccup got to his feet, returned to the central area, and grabbed one of the buckets, a cloth, and a bar of soap. It was not the most impressive soap to the touch, rather hard and waxy, but it would do.

It was even more work to get an actual lather from the soap, and the feel of water on his hands made him more aware of how thirsty he was. For the moment, Hiccup pushed it aside. He set about washing the Monstrous Nightmare, starting beneath his chin and up right to the crease of his neck, in slow soothing motions that followed the grain of the scales. The Nightmare shifted his chin as best he could while Hiccup worked, both of them together trying to get the water over as much of the skin as they could. Where his head was strapped to the wooden stock, it had caused damage to the scales and skin beneath.

It was unlikely that Outcast Island was going to have marigolds or marsh mallow for use, or even yarrow like that which grew wild all around Berk. Hiccup paused, fingers running over the sore skin, and tried to scramble through the other options which Gobber had mentioned, for when there was no alternative.

“Do you have any garlic?” he said to Alvin. “Or onions?”

“What now? Would the dragons like some soup before bedtime?”

“Believe it or not, chaining them up has injured them,” said Hiccup. “I’d rather live dragons in these cells than dead ones.”

He held Alvin’s gaze, sure that even Outcast Island would be able to find a few onions to spare, and eventually Alvin turned to one of the waiting men. “Dulltongue, find the boy some onions. Anything else?” he added, still a hair’s breadth from mocking as he turned back to Hiccup.

“Clearing out the old dung,” said Hiccup. He nodded to the other man, who did not manage to hide the wrinkle of his nose. “I’m going to guess you knew that was coming, given the shovels and wheelbarrow.”

Alvin waved for the second man to do as Hiccup suggested, and though the man did not look best pleased about it he obeyed without argument. He stuck close to the walls of the cell, taking quick glances at the Nightmare who was watching him almost unblinking.

Rinsing out his cloth, Hiccup moved on to the top of the Nightmare’s head, paying particular attention to the base of the horns and the fold between the eyes. Once he had done around the nostrils, careful not to let any water trickle in, he returned for a second, clean bucket and a second, clean cloth, and gently started to dab water onto the cap that had been retained over the dragon’s left eye.

As the water first touched it, the Nightmare rumbled with displeasure, and Hiccup saw the man that Alvin had sent in jump and look round as if he were about ready to flee. Such astounding bravery around a chained creature.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly to the dragon. “This will help.” He stroked the Nightmare’s snout with his right hand, left one still gently daubing water onto the eyecap. At least his first time doing this wasn’t with a Terrible Terror or a hatchling, or something equally small. He could see the edge of the cap, just clear of the eye, and gently ran his right hand up to keep hold of it, keeping the area damp all the while.

Another rumble, but having someone’s hands fiddling about with your eye could not be a great sensation, and there was no edge of pain to the sound or difficulty as the eyecap slid upwards and back with Hiccup’s touch, revealing the bright yellow of the eye beneath.

“There we go,” said Hiccup, and found himself truly smiling for the first time since he had been here. The dragon looked up at him, blinked, and then huffed. Hiccup ran the damp cloth beneath his eye one more time. “Sorry the view’s not great, but at least you’ll see it more clearly.”

“Do they all take this much time to work?” Alvin said.

Hiccup crossed to drop the eyecap in the wheelbarrow as well. “Well, it only takes a short while each day, or it takes a long time if you’re suddenly having to deal with the mistreatment all at once. A stitch in time,” he said. Swapping back to the soapy water, he started on the Nightmare’s neck. “And dragons do tend to take care of themselves, if they have the opportunity.”

He was not surprised when he did not get an actual answer, and just continued on with his work. It was almost soothing, following the lines of the scales, taking note of every scuff and scratch on the way down. Some trout or salmon would be a good idea, but he doubted that it would be possible to talk Alvin into getting good quality examples of particular _species_ of fish into the dragons.

He found himself muttering away as he went down, mostly about what he would do if he had the opportunity, proper marigold washes and oils on the skin. The crunch of shovel on stone grated every time, but he knew that it was better for the dragon, every bit of dung pulled out would make the cell… less terrible, at the very least.

His arms starting to ache as he reached the Nightmare’s shoulders, but at the sound of footsteps he looked up to see that the runner that Alvin had sent had finally returned. Without asking for permission, Hiccup put his cloth back into the bucket, walked straight over to the man, and held out his hands for the onions.

The man looked at Alvin. He wasn’t much older than Hiccup, with a scraggly attempt at a beard and skin that was still trying to clear the last marks of acne. Only when Alvin waved his hand did the man hand over the onions, but Hiccup merely waited with his other hand still outstretched.

“What?” said the man eventually.

“Well, I could bite them open, but I don’t think the dragon would appreciate my spit ending up in his wounds and I don’t really fancy the taste of raw onion,” said Hiccup. “I’ll need a knife.” The man still looked unconvinced. “What, you think I’m going to take on the whole of Outcast Island with a knife? I’m flattered.”

“Here,” said Alvin. He reached to his own waist, and Hiccup was offended but not really surprised when he produced one of the Gronckle iron knives. “You two seem fond of these. Interesting alloy, that.”

“Why, Alvin, I never knew you had such an interest in smithing,” said Hiccup, taking his knife carefully where the blade was extended towards him. “Or is it just the weapons part?”

He was not expecting an answer, and did not wait for one, holding one onion in his hand and tucking the rest of the string under his arm before cutting off the head and starting to peel off the skin. The flesh was starting to get a little soft, but there were no black spots yet, and Hiccup fancied its chances for still being usable. He peeled off one of the thicker layers, and had to kneel to duck back under the stock and get a good view as he manoeuvred the onion into place between wood and dragon. The dragon grunted.

“I know, that probably stings… believe me,” Hiccup dropped his voice to barely a murmur, “I’ve had far worse done to my leg. I’ll get that out when we’re done washing.” He patted the dragon’s neck on the way back up, grimaced at the way that his knees ached and his leg chafed against his prosthetic, and felt a pang in his stomach at the smell of the onions over his shoulder. Hungry for raw onions; he was about to roll his eyes at the idea when he remembered Elsa eating wild onion to tease him, only a year ago.

There was nowhere on the floor inside the pen that was remotely clean, and even if the floor outside might not be spotless it would still be an improvement. Hiccup returned to Alvin, handed over the knife with only a slightly pointed look, and put the onions on the floor next to the chair. Alvin did not say anything, and Hiccup thought there might have been a hint of a smile behind the thick beard, but Hiccup kept his mouth shut as well and went back to pick up where he had left off.

“The floor needs cleaning once it’s cleared,” he said, picking up the bucket and moving it further back along the Nightmare. “Brooms and soapy water.”

“You heard the lad,” said Alvin to his men, gesturing to the buckets. “Go and find yourselves a couple of brooms.”

With angry glances – at Hiccup, no less – the men exited to their search. Hiccup just pushed his sleeves further up and ignored that he was in the room with only Alvin and the dragons.

Compared to a dragon of Toothless’s size, a Monstrous Nightmare took a lot longer to wash. Hiccup’s arms and back began to ache, and he felt increasingly light-headed, but he stubbornly refused to let Alvin see that he was tiring. The two men returned, pulled over buckets and soap, and started cleaning from the back of the pen. Since there wasn’t a drain there, it didn’t really matter where they started, Hiccup supposed. He took his time with the left wing, testing the membrane gently with his fingertips, feeling for any small rips or tender points. On Toothless, it took hours to do a full check; on a dragon the size of a Monstrous Nightmare, he was quite aware that it could take days. But if Alvin wanted to sit and watch Hiccup prod a dragon’s wings for days, he was more than welcome to.

He smelled when food was brought in for Alvin, and refused to look round, even as his stomach started to ache again. It wouldn’t have seemed so bad a year or two ago, but apparently his body had become complacent that he would be eating well, and the result was hunger pains. Gritting his teeth, he kept going, even as the men who had been scrubbing out of the pen finished up and sloshed water around his feet in an attempt at one final rinse.

Once he had cleared two segments of wing, he rose to his feet and rolled his stiff shoulders. “I need to look in his mouth,” he said to Alvin.

“And why would that be allowed?”

“See this?” Rinsing his hands in the bucket of clean water he had kept aside, Hiccup stepped back up to the Nightmare’s mouth. He peeled down the lower lip far enough to reveal the gum beneath. It was markedly red, and the Nightmare flinched when Hiccup’s hand brushed against it. “That’s mouth rot. If it gets much worse it could kill him, by stopping him eating or by getting into his blood. The only way to deal with it is to clean out his mouth.”

“Rather you than me,” said Alvin, getting to his feet. “Lads! We might yet be about to see a roast hiccup.”

The chains on the Nightmare were not locked, just held in place with bolts and buckles, and as the Outcasts moved to stand right on the edge of Hiccup’s view, where the Nightmare probably could not see them and they would have time to throw themselves out of the way of any fire, Hiccup set about undoing them.

The buckles were stiff, and had made marks in the leather where they had been in place for too long as the dragon had been growing. Hiccup’s fingers hurt just from pulling them loose, but eventually he was able to lever open the top half and release the dragon’s head and neck.

He immediately raised his head, and flexed it from side to side, as if testing out his sore muscles. His mouth fell open, and Hiccup was hit with the smell of sickness, worse than before.

“You’re all right there, big guy,” said Hiccup, keeping his voice gentle still. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Well, cleaning your mouth might hurt some,” he admitted, “but it’ll be better in the long run.”

He held up a hand again, and was more gratified than ever when the Nightmare reached across to rub against it. This time there was more pressure behind the touch, and it was not Hiccup doing it. Less than a day, that was all that it had taken. Less than a day, some buckets of water, and an onion.

He had kept back what looked like the cleanest of the cloths, as well as the bucket of water he had used to soak the eyecap away. Starting with the least inflamed parts of the mouth, Hiccup set about cleaning the Nightmare’s gums as best he could without picks or wire brushes. Nothing suitable would exist on Outcast Island, he knew that much; Gobber had made all of his own tools.

Every so often, the Nightmare would grunt or rumble, a low sound that seemed to almost reverberate through the floor, and Hiccup would respond with low shushing sounds or deep slow breaths through what had to be uncomfortable at best and painful at worst. Slowly he worked around to the redder, more painful areas, but the Nightmare let him, let the grime and white scabs be washed away bit by bit. Hiccup never tugged at them, just gently used his fingers to peel them away, bathing with water to do what he could for the pain. At least the air around them felt a little fresher, even if it was still stiflingly warm and damp.

The ache in his shoulders grew worse as he made his way towards the original injury – injuries, he realised, multiple wounds in the Nightmare’s lower right gum. He wondered whether that, too, had been because of the muzzle that had been forced into place.

“There we go,” he said softly, as the first of the green-white-red scabs came away. Pus and blood oozed out; well, at least the blood could be considered a good sign. “I’ve got you. You’ll be all right.”

He kept rinsing the wound until only blood remained, and hoped that would be enough. Blood was good, that was the thing; it showed that there was still life there, and as long as there was life they had a chance. He cleaned out each wound in turn, letting the Nightmare wince and grumble as he needed to, until the water ran bloody and there was blood staining beneath his nails. But when it was done, the dragon’s eyes seemed less constricted in the darkness, and he allowed Hiccup to stroke his jaw with only the faintest rumble deep in his chest. It might even have been a ghost of a chuff.

Regretfully, he turned back to deal with the humans, rather than the dragons, in his vicinity. “It’ll need cleaning at least daily,” he said. “And you can’t have the straps as tight again. It’ll force the teeth back into the wound, make it worse.”

Alvin and his men had stepped back into a clearer line of view at some point, probably when it had become clear that the Nightmare would not be breathing fire at anyone, and for a heartbeat Hiccup did wonder whether one dragon with its mouth free would be enough. But no; it would be a long way back to where Elsa and Heather were being held, a fight back, and without Toothless’s tail he would need one of the other dragons to carry him.

He could feel the shadows of a plan, cool beneath the surface of his mind, just not quite grasp the edges yet. But he certainly had the sinking feeling that it would not be one that he could enact in just a day or two.

Alvin nodded to one of his men. “Get one of the bags, same as for the Night Fury. I’ll see you put those straps back on, though,” he said to Hiccup.

Hiccup had a feeling that Alvin thought this was going to be a matter of compromise, and the thought made him clench his teeth with anger. It took a lot of soothing hand gestures and gentle sounds to get the Nightmare to rest his head on the wooden block again, the last of the onion cleaned from his skin and the position adjusted by a fraction of an inch so that the edges of the wood did not press on the same raw places.

As Hiccup was putting the first strap back into place, Alvin walked over, footsteps heavy and armour making small metallic sounds as it shifted. He seemed too heavy in the room, impossible to ignore or avoid, and the only thing that kept Hiccup’s anger from showing in the movement of his hands was that rough gestures would hurt the Nightmare he was supposed to be working with. He returned the straps to their place, but a hole looser, and as Alvin looked over slipped a fingertip beneath the leather to demonstrate.

“It should be this loose, at the very least,” he said. “Allow them to breath, allow their scales to lie flat, like they should. “This one’s still growing, and you could affect his teeth and bones if you strap it too tightly.

Alvin looked unconvinced, but reached over and tested the leather with his fingers as well. Where Hiccup had been able to slide his fingers underneath, Alvin could not, and seemed to decide that was tight enough for now. “Fine. No good having a defective beast, is it?” he said, with enough of a growl to stop it from sounding like a concession. “What next?”

“The other pens will need cleaning as well. The manure is effective,” he added dryly, “so maybe that will even help your crops. It’ll take me more time to even finish checking this one over, though,” he rested a hand on the Nightmare’s snout, almost chest-height to him, “let alone the others.”

“So what?” said Alvin. “You’re saying I should start over? Fresh dragons, decrease the work?”

Again, the hot anger prickling in the back of his throat. But at least he knew that this was his own, and not that of the strange dragon several cells along. “I’m saying that you should treat them well in the first place. Good food and good hygiene, and you wouldn’t even have these problems.”

Scowl still in place, Alvin looked around, seeming to consider it. It grated against Hiccup’s ribs to describe it in so mercenary a term, a little input to save work later on, when it should have been simply that it was _right_ to treat the dragons well. He kept his hand on the Nightmare still, feeling the comfortable way that he accepted it, so unlike the way that he had flinched just at the beginning of the day. The _loyalty_ he could feel budding there, the gratitude for trying to make up for things that should never have been done in the first place.

“Fine,” he said, and Hiccup allowed himself to breathe again. “I’ll get me men started on it tomorrow. But you’re going to have to calm the dragons down first. I won’t have them growling and snarling the whole time.”

“If it gets them cleaned, I’ll do it,” said Hiccup. It was not that much of a concession, not as much as his words probably made it sound; in truth, he wanted to see each of the dragons as soon as possible, to touch them, get them used to his voice and his smell and the feel of his hands. “Starting tomorrow. Now, let me see Toothless.”

“You’ve already seen him.”

“Let me check the straps on him. Apparently you don’t even know how to restrain a Monstrous Nightmare without harming them, I don’t want to think what you’ll do with a Night Fury.” He did his best to make it sound disdainful, as if he actually had some sort of power or sway in this situation where Alvin had him as much a prisoner as the dragons, just lucky enough not to be muzzled.

Although, Hiccup supposed, he did have some power. So long as he knew things that the Outcasts did not, and so long as they did not understand, did not want to understand, he knew that the dragons would respond to him in a way that they never would to Alvin or his followers. Elsa, as well; though she was less confident around dragons, he had seen her around enough to know that she could handle herself. He was not yet sure about Heather, but hoped that she would learn fast to do the right thing, or at least not do the _wrong_ things. It wasn’t really as hard as people seemed to think.

With a put-upon roll of his eyes, Alvin gestured for Hiccup to get out of the Nightmare’s cell, had it locked behind them, and escorted him down to Toothless. Hiccup did not say a word as he was allowed in, did not throw himself against Toothless as he ached to. Instead he tried to look calm, professional, as he checked each of the straps and buckles in turn. They were new, he could see that much, and had been made approximately the right size before they had even been put into place; someone had been watching closely when the Outcasts had seen Toothless before.

But none of them were painfully tight, and even the airholes in the leather muzzle were sufficient. Hiccup took the opportunity to feel the shape of the metal beneath; it was fitted, but not tight enough to stop Toothless opening his mouth all together. A normal dragon would have still had teeth in the way, but a Night Fury, with those retractable teeth, would be able to shoot through the narrowest of openings in its mouth. The leather would be the problem there.

“You can’t keep his tail bent round like that,” said Hiccup. “It’ll affect the muscles. Any of them,” he waved generally along the axis of the cells, “they’ll be starting to lose muscle strength from being chained up. They’ll need to be built up slowly before they’re up to long flights even without riders.”

Frustration flickered in Alvin’s eyes, in the heavy set of his brow. Most likely, it was just dawning on him that his actions were going to take work to clear up, work that he did not want to do. He had some smarts at least, though; he was not throwing some tantrum over the idea of the dragons needing work to be well again, and for anyone other than Alvin the Treacherous Hiccup might have been wondering whether he was regretting what he had done. More likely just regretting the work that he had made himself, though.

“When they can be trusted to be out of the chains, they’ll be out of them,” said Alvin. “No’ before.”

He supposed that there were worse things that could be said. “Fine,” said Hiccup. “Now, is there anything else that you wanted from me today?”

 

 

 

 

 

He was returned to the cell unceremoniously, by one of Alvin’s guards rather than the Outcast leader himself. Hiccup did not bother trying to talk to the man, who was not Savage or anyone else that Alvin seemed to hold in better esteem, but instead kept his eyes around him again, looking for anything that might tell him more.

For a moment, he almost did not recognise the man standing at the outer door to the cells, for all the shock of white hair and the staff in his hand. It was the sheep that was the giveaway, somehow, the first animal that Hiccup had actually seen on Outcast Island other than the dragons, and his legs caught on before his brain as he found himself striding down the tunnel.

“Mildew!” His voice echoed on the rock.

Mildew’s head actually whipped round, whiskers trembling as he looked around desperately until his eyes landed on Hiccup. He backed away, holding his staff with both hands in front of him.

“I should have _known_ ,” Hiccup spat. It did make sense, in a dull and distant sort of way.

“Now, boy, you wouldn’t dare–” Mildew began.

It did stop Hiccup in his tracks, though probably not for the reason that Hiccup intended. Hiccup looked from Mildew, down to Fungus, and back up again, then caught himself just in time to avoid laughing.

“You came running out here to – what?” said Hiccup. “Get away from the dragons? You didn’t exactly check with Alvin first, did you?”

Mildew scowled. “At least he isn’t treating them like honoured guests.”

They would not be here for long at all, if Hiccup had his way about things, but that was not something he was fool enough to say aloud. He had been expecting to be angry if he ever saw Mildew again, and there had been a moment, a ghost of it. But either he was too tired, or Mildew really wasn’t worth it. It could well have been both.

“You’re just running from the future,” said Hiccup, more softly. He turned to Fungus. “Sorry that you got dragged along for the ride.”

His supposed escort caught up with him, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him through the unlocked door and back towards the cells. As the door closed behind them, Hiccup looked over his shoulder to see Mildew glowering at him before turning away again.

He really should have known, he supposed. Where else would Mildew go, with his hatred of what Berk was becoming but no boat or supplies to make a better life for himself? He hadn’t even been able to take all of his sheep.

Hiccup snorted, shaking his head as he was taken back down the corridor again. He had bigger problems to worry about than Mildew. As he entered the area with the cells, he looked around again, first checking to make sure there was no sign of anyone other than Elsa or Heather being held. He had been so rattled the day before that he had not even thought that far. He could not see anyone in any of the other cells, which was mostly reassuring.

By faint, weak daylight – late evening, he realised, and he had been a whole day already with the one Nightmare – the cells looked much the same, bare rock and metal bars set close enough together that it would not be possible to squeeze out between or under them. But what did catch his eye was another of the mirrors, like the one that Alvin had worn, hanging from a nail on the wall opposite the cell where Elsa was being held. A broom leant against the wall underneath, a small pile of rocky debris beside it.

He started towards the mirror, almost dragging the Outcast holding his arm after him, but was hauled back into place and dragged back towards his own cell. The way that the door was, though, he knew that he would not be able to see the mirror from there, and squinted at it for as long as he could before his cell was unlocked, he was shoved in, and his manacles were put back into place.

 

“Bloody wriggler,” the Outcast muttered by way of a farewell, and then stormed from the room, slamming the outer door closed as he reached it.

Hiccup settled back against the same stretch of wall as he had the night before, feeling all the sore places that the rock had managed to dig into him last night. “Hello again,” he said to Heather, who was still in much the same place as well. “I hope you had a more pleasant day than I did.”

She looked at him in faint disbelief, and for a moment he wondered if she was going to ask if he had completely lost his mind, but then she shook her head and smiled to herself instead. “You are so weird.”

“Get told that regularly,” he said. “But I spent quite a bit of today on my knees in dung, so, genuinely – I hope your day went better than that.”

She shrugged. “The usual. Kept an eye on the weather, had one of Alvin’s men come to ask me if I wanted to join the Outcasts. I talked to your friend some, though,” she said, with a nod out of the cell. “She sounds nice.”

“She is,” he replied, and wished all over again that Elsa had not been dragged into this as well. He shuffled over to the bars as best he could. “Elsa? You all right?”

She appeared again, just about visible when she leant right back as well. “It has mostly been quiet,” she said. “They spoke to Heather, but not to me. You?”

“I saw Toothless. He’s all right.” Chained and confined, but unhurt, at least. Probably, and justifiably, angry; Hiccup was all but counting on that. “But there are others.”

He heard Elsa’s sharp hiss of breath, and across the cell from him Heather’s eyes went wide as well.

“Alvin wants me to work with them. I’m… working on that,” he said. “Probably just be more of the same tomorrow.”

“Be careful,” said Elsa.

“It’s not them I’m worried about.” The dragons were just… dragons. Hurt and scared and angry, and with every right to be all three of those. It was the Outcasts, with human pettiness and human hypocrisy, that worried him. He turned to Heather again. “Sorry. This set-up isn’t the most conducive to conversation.”

“Better than being in here by myself.”

She had to be right about that. “You said that one of the Outcasts asked you to _join_ them?” said Hiccup, drawing up again what Heather had said offhand. He frowned. “After keeping you like this?”

“I guess it’s supposed to be better than the alternative.” He had to give her credit; she could keep a dry tone of voice even in a situation like this. But it did seem to get easier, after the first time, to keep the fear at bay and get on with what was ahead. “It was Alvin himself, at first. Told me that this was an up-and-coming island,” she said, with a meaningful look, “real go-getters, about to turn around their fortune. Said that anyone with a good mind and a strong back could do well here.”

“What did you say?” he said, knowing roughly what it would take but curious as to how exactly she would reply.

Heather smiled slyly. “I told him I’d die first, and he said that could be arranged. And then I said that at least I’d never see him in Valhalla, because the gods themselves would sink his ship before they let him find it.”

He could picture Alvin’s offended expression, and smiled. “You curse like a skald.”

“My father would be glad to hear it,” she said. Hiccup raised his eyebrows. “It’s why we travelled so much when I was a kid. How I learnt to handle a boat.”

It took a moment for the pieces to click together, his brain dulled with hunger and repetition, but it finally sunk in. Hiccup looked Heather over again, impressed. “Your father is a skald?”

She nodded. “He never settled to work for one chief or anything. My mother trades. But he’s the one who kept us travelling.”

“Well, he certainly taught you how to insult people well,” said Hiccup, with a bow of his head. “I… I probably would just have told Alvin to go fuck himself.” He was tired enough for that now, for words that he would not normally use to rise to the surface and bubble out.

But Heather laughed. “You curse like a sailor,” she said.

“Blacksmith.” Almost every obscenity that he knew came from Gobber, or from overhearing people chattering while waiting for their weapons or tools to be fixed. Stoick would have had Hiccup wear earplugs if he knew half of the words that could be heard in a smithy.

She nodded. “That would also explain it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mildew is a coward and a muttonhead, but hey, what you gonna do?
> 
> I double-checked the pronouns in this chapter to make sure that Hiccup uses _he_ for the Nightmare all the way through, but knowing my luck something crept through. (Alvin alternates between 'he' and 'it'.)


	14. Chapter 14

They were given water again that evening, for which Hiccup was more grateful than he allowed to show on his face. Although he glanced at Heather, she waved for him to drink his own ration, and his throat itched when he had to hand back the cup. Even better – or at least closer to tolerable – was that they were given food, dried fish that could be used to hammer in nails and cheese that had clearly seen better days. Apparently the Outcast idea of a sense of humour was to also give Hiccup a raw onion, which he picked up from the floor with a sigh.

“If I’d known this was coming,” he said, rapping the fish with his knuckles and hoping that his teeth would be able to stand it, “I would have kept the water and dipped this into it.”

Heather had already managed to get through the skin of the fish with her teeth, and was now using her fingers to peel it back in sections. “Honestly? It starts seeming bearable after a few days.” She flattened a piece between her fingers, condensing it to something solid rather than thin flakes, and put it in her mouth. “What’s with the onion, anyway?”

“Alvin’s idea of an inside joke.” All the same, he tucked it into his lap before the damp of the ground seeped into it. Deciding that the fish looked like more of a challenge than the cheese, he followed Heather’s example and tackled it first. “What I would not give,” he added, between wrenching his way in, “for a change of clothes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Sorry,” he said. He had at least been able to get cleaned up before they had started the second leg of their journey to Frigg’s Hearth – it felt so long ago now, just three days or so. Heather had been dealing with this for longer.

Again, she shrugged. “At least this way I don’t have to worry about anyone peering in. Noticed a significant shortage of women when I was captured,” she added, slightly more bitterly.

“More likely to head for an island other than this one, I think,” Hiccup said, something of a stab in the dark but honestly his best bet. “Or the Bog Burglars – they don’t care much about some crimes that can get you exiled from other islands. Not everywhere seems to be as equal in bull-headed stupidity as Berk, either.”

Heather smiled, shaking her head. There was something almost fond about it, but Hiccup suspected that had a lot more to do with being the first person she had spoken to in a while who was not an Outcast. “You know, I’ve never visited Berk,” she said. “Nor – what’s the name of that city at the other end of the island? Arran?”

“Arendelle.”

She nodded. “That one. Two, three years ago, my family spent some time sailing between the more southerly kingdoms. Visited quite a few, actually. Learnt some new songs, some new curses. But not Arendelle.”

“Two years ago was when the King and Queen were lost,” said Hiccup, more quietly.

Heather’s smile faded. “It was,” she said. “You’re right. We were in the Southern Isles when we heard, changed our course and went further east instead. Then ended up going north for a couple of years. Never made it to Berk in the end.”

 _Soon_ , thought Hiccup, but did not dare say it aloud. Even if Alvin would doubtless be counting on Hiccup to be trying something, he did not yet know himself quite what it was, and did not know how good Heather’s acting could be either. Better if whatever she did was natural, and not faked. “Well, you aren’t missing too much. Sheep, rain, a fine and varied history of dragon attacks, and a past which has unfortunately been rather too entwined with that of Outcast Island itself.” He shot a glance towards the door, even if there was probably nobody listening.

“After so many islands, I am something of a connoisseur of rain,” said Heather, with just a ghost of a tease to her voice.

Hiccup thought of the vast vocabulary on the subject which Berk had to draw upon. “Yeah,” he said, and it came out more homesick than he had meant it to. “So are we.”

 

 

 

 

 

Heather assured him that there had been no two nights in a row that there had been dragon attacks, at least since she had been held here. It seemed she was right; although it rained during the night, it was not much more than drizzle and did not run across the floor, and there were no dragons to be heard. He dozed again, in that place that was not deep enough to be restful but deep enough to let his mind slow to a crawl, to slowly creep around pieces of knowledge that were too vague to come to him while he was awake, but were somehow clearer in that half-asleep state.

It was the opening of the door that truly woke him, more than the faint light; the sky outside must have been heavy and dark with clouds. He hurried to put his foot back on as Alvin and one of his jailers – a glance confirmed that it was Swordripper again – entered the room, and Swordripper took the water over to Elsa first, just as had been done the day before. There was less of a hesitation this time before she took it from his hand.

“So,” said Alvin, walking over towards Hiccup’s cell, “I hope you’re ready to continue your work.”

“Yes, and I’m sure that watching it is just riveting,” said Hiccup. He probably could have stood up even with his hands bound, but frankly did not really want to right at that moment. “You know, it would go quicker if you allowed Elsa to assist me.”

Alvin scoffed. “You know I’m no fool, don’t go saying things like that. I’m not letting you and her both out there.”

“We don’t have to be working in the same cell,” said Hiccup. “You can send more of your men to work on the floors, but trust me, the dragons are going to react just as badly to them now as they did before. Men that the dragons haven’t seen?” he shrugged. “You might have a chance. But Elsa will be able to actively help. Otherwise you’re in for another long, slow day of wing washing. Probably about three more, actually, just to get the Monstrous Nightmare checked over. And you need to be moving quicker if you want to get them out of those pens before muscle wastage sets in.”

He could have held his breath, waiting for the answer, but kept as firm and confident as he could. It was not just _Alvin_ who would need those dragons out quickly if they were going to be useful. Swordripper came over with his water and cup, but even Heather was watching cautiously; Hiccup wondered how much she was putting together of what Hiccup was doing in the cells.

“Give me the keys,” said Alvin to Swordripper, and Hiccup held back from feeling triumphant. Relieved would do. “Very well then, Hiccup,” he said, voice slowly rising as he walked back over to Elsa’s pen, the better to fill the distance. “I can’t spare any more of my men right now, but you’re in luck; you’ll have a pupil all the same.”

If he thought that Elsa knew that much less than Hiccup, he was wrong, but Hiccup did not say anything. Alvin paused opposite the tunnel out of the cells; and whistled down it; Hiccup frowned as a third man came to join them. Did Alvin think that it would take two people just to restrain Elsa? He passed the first cup of water to Heather, and offered her the second, but she shook her head even if her eyes weren’t so convinced. He drank half of his cup, and gave her the rest; he could see the gratitude in her eyes again as she gulped it down.

Alvin led Elsa out with a hand between her shoulders, and her eyes strayed from Hiccup’s cell to something out of the line of his sight, a frown crossing her features. They stopped in the middle of the cell, and Alvin threw the keys to the man entering and nodded to Hiccup’s cell.

He had to say one thing for Alvin: the communication on Outcast Island was certainly efficient. Hiccup refused to let show how much his legs shook when he was pulled to his feet again, the fish and cheese of the previous evening not doing anywhere near enough. He had found a nook in the wall in which to tuck the onion away, but was fast coming to consider it a viable dinner option. He rolled away the stiffness in his wrists as Swordripper took the keys and went to close the door again, only for Alvin to speak up.

“No,” he said. “Her as well.”

“What?” said Heather. Hiccup could not blame her for either the surprise or the fear in her tone, considering that she did not know quite what was going on, but that it involved dragons. She tried to hold her hands away as Swordripper stepped into the cell and grabbed at her, and planted a determined kick on his knee. His leg almost buckled beneath him, but he grabbed the manacles and used them to drag her sharply sideways, almost pulling her over, before unlocking them.

“Hey!” said Hiccup. “There’s no need for that!”

“She wants to fight, she gets to fight,” said Alvin, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone of voice. Swordripper took hold of Heather’s arm and pulled her to her feet, even as her legs gave way and she had to catch herself on the wall. “Come on, I’m sure after all that time in that cell you’re just itching for a stretch.”

Heather glared at him from beneath her hair, and dragged herself upright with pain flickering visibly in her tight lips and winces. But she made it to upright, just as Swordripper took the opportunity to shove her in Hiccup’s direction.

It was only a couple of steps, but she stumbled, and Hiccup dodged in to catch her more from instinct than clear thought. She hissed angrily, fingers digging into Hiccup’s arms, but allowed herself to be helped upright and gave him a nod that he knew was still one of thanks.

“It’ll be all right,” said Hiccup quietly, as he released her arms. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Don’t worry, girl,” said Alvin. “You’ve been honoured! Wasn’t so keen on teaching us what he knows, were you, Hiccup? Now, get moving, all of you, and if I hear a word of Arendellen in front of those dragons you’ll all be working with gags on.”

Hiccup slowed his pace when he realised that Heather’s steps were still a little faltering, and put on a slight limp as a way of explaining it. It was harder to argue with a prosthetic foot, after all, and doubtless Outcast Island had more than enough of them to speak to that. He did not dare look over his shoulder, however, and had to trust that they were both still behind him as he led them directly down the tunnel to where the dragons were being held.

The air still made his head reel, made bile rise in his throat, but it was not as bad as it had been the day before and he only hesitated for a step before continuing. He heard Elsa’s sharp gasp, but before he could turn Alvin snapped at them to keep going, and given the circumstances he did not have much choice but to obey.

Just inside the room he stopped, and turned to them both. Elsa looked even paler than usual, almost ashen, and fear flickered in Heather’s eyes as she looked around. There was a muted, strangled roar from one of the Gronckles, and Heather jumped, almost darting backwards before the man who had joined Alvin stepped into her way. She bounced off him.

“It’s all right,” said Hiccup. “They’re just angry because they’ve been chained up.”

“They?” said Heather.

Hiccup looked at Alvin, expecting him to take over at this point, but Alvin just looked amused with the whole thing and nodded for Hiccup to explain. “The dragons,” said Hiccup, finally. “There are eight of them, one to a pen,” he nodded down along the line. “Alvin wants me to show them how to work with the dragons.” Unable to help himself, he gave Alvin a venomous look. “I’m not sure how much they’re actually learning.”

“Enough commentary,” said Alvin sharply.

“Berk has dragons,” said Hiccup. It was the first time that he had said it, willingly, to someone from outside Berk. For a moment, it did not seem to sink in, then Heather’s eyes went wide and she drew away from Hiccup, swaying back in place as if suddenly seeming someone else standing in his place. “They are part of us; we are part of them. I learnt that, and told people. For now, all that I’m doing with these dragons is trying to get them clean, and start to get them healthy. They’re not in good shape.” Even Alvin could not contradict him over that. “If you’re willing to help me,” he heard Alvin huff, about to tell him off again, and continued more quickly and more forcefully, “then all I will ask for now is for you to help clean the pens. You don’t have to interact with the dragons. Have you ever been near one before?”

She shook her head, with a breath that sound almost like a fast, fluttering laugh. “No. My family avoids them.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” he said, hoping that his smile looked genuine. It was meant to be, beneath the tiredness. “But it’ll be all right. They won’t hurt you.”

“You can stop them?” said Heather.

“They don’t want to.”

Although she still looked uncertain, the fear in her eyes softened at his words, and she shifted back to a more neutral stance in front of him. Hiccup could not help wondering whether his lips felt more dry from nervousness or from thirst.

“Will you let me show you?” he said, extending a hand.

He did not in the slightest bit blame Heather for looking at his hand as if it, as well, might suddenly sprout fangs and prove itself capable of biting. But she did, finally, place her hand into his, and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. Only then did he look round to Alvin.

“I know what this means for you, as well,” said Hiccup. “Seeing how you should greet a dragon for the first time.”

“Indeed,” said Alvin.

“So I want information for it.”

It was bold, and probably foolish, and he knew it. But even besides his own anger, and his own desire to defy Alvin that he was quashing for the sake of the dragons, he knew that if he went along with everything too easily that Alvin would get suspicious.

“I’ll let you ask yer questions.”

No guarantee of answers, but it was a start. “One question,” said Hiccup, holding up a finger for emphasis, “and then I show Heather how to greet a Nadder, and you see as well.” He took a deep breath, and made firm his decision. “The buckle. Where did you get it?”

His heart pounded in his chest. Heather frowned at him, but he only saw it out of the corner of his eye, could not look round to her. Could not have explained to a stranger, even one that he was having to trust so intimately as her. Instead he held Alvin’s gaze, until the Outcast gave an astonished bark of laughter.

“That’s _it_?” he said. “I give you a free question, and you ask about the buckle?” He laughed again, harder this time, shaking his head. Hiccup felt his throat tighten and the anger and humiliation welling in him again, but tamped them down. He _had_ to know. “Well, that I shall answer.” Alvin’s eyes met Hiccup’s again, and there was a cruel pleasure there, pride. “We made it right ‘ere. Half of Berk would have recognised that buckle, your mother were so proud of it. Wore it even when you were in her belly.” He pointed at Hiccup, but it was less a jab and more of a lazy, vague recognition. “Course, it was after my time she was lost, so I had to ask some Berkians proper–”

“ _Mildew_ ,” said Hiccup, without meaning to, and it came out like a curse.

Alvin shrugged. “Mildew, your man from last year, what was that name;” he snapped his fingers; “Lugstick? Something like that. Even your friend Johann would at least have known whether _he’d_ seen it the last fourteen years. So don’t you mind where I checked,” he concluded, “just know that I did. And then all we had to do was mock one up again – couldn’t get the eyes quite right, the gems were tat,” he waved a hand. “But it was good enough. And then all we had to do was put a boat on the currents that would lead to Berk. I imagine you must have got there first, to get your ‘ands on it.”

It was as if there was not the right shaped space for the words in his head. Of all the things he had been expecting, hoping for or fearing in equal measure, it was not that. Hiccup stared, all words lost, as an aching hollow pain started to spread to him.

He had been wrong, even more wrong than he had realised. And now there was not even knowledge of his mother for him to take home.

“Hiccup…” said Elsa, softly. He could not even turn his eyes to look at her. All the years that he had grown up knowing that his mother was gone, and for one ridiculous weak moment he had thought that somehow he could rewrite the story. Change it all. What could he expect but to fail?

“There’s your information,” said Alvin, the words like weights slamming down. “Now do your part. Get to work.”

 

 

 

 

 

He moved woodenly, as if all of the stiffness of the night had struck him at once. Alvin gestured for the one Outcast with them to unlock the door to the pen of the first Nadder, who looked up with wary, defensive eyes as Hiccup led Heather near.

“You’ve got no weapons,” he said to her, “so you’re no threat. They know that.” It was not the iron or steel itself that they reacted to, either; it had to be the blood, that was all that Hiccup could see for an explanation. “Stay calm – I know,” he added quickly, “it’s easier said than done. But it really does help. Now, we approach from right in front.”

He stepped behind her, and she looked alarmed for a moment as took hold of her left hand in his, then paused.

“Wait, sorry, which hand to you use? For writing.”

“The right,” said Heather, with a vague gesture that he suspected was largely from nerves. Hiccup gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and stepped to be at her right shoulder instead, reaching round to bring her hand up and facing outwards.

“All right, then. So, with him;” a nod to the Nadder; “we’re going to approach from straight ahead.”

The smile was hollow behind, he knew that much, and it faded as soon as Heather was facing away from him and towards the dragon again. He did not dare look round, knowing that anger or despair or something in between would come rushing back if he looked upon Alvin again. He had to concentrate on the dragon; for all that he had downplayed the danger, there always was one with so large and powerful a creature, and Heather needed and deserved his focus.

“I’m right behind you,” he said. “Step up into the blindspot; there we go.” They stood right before the dragon’s nose, closer than Heather would have preferred to judge by the tension in her shoulders. But the blindspot was not large anyway, and with the lingering smell they would need to be closer to. “Let him smell you. Their sense of smell is a lot stronger than ours.”

“Doubt I smell that good right now,” said Heather.

“Dragons have different standards.”

It was meant to be a joke, but he heard how flat it was. All that he could hear was Alvin’s words in his head, over and over, _We made it right here_. A second treachery.

“As he finishes his sniffing,” he continued, as the Nadder seemed to start to lose interest, chin dropping again, “take the same hand, and reach round just…” he guided her hand to the spot just behind the Nadder’s jaw. “Here. Scratch gently, don’t let your nails snag on the scales there. That way it doesn’t hurt.”

From where he was standing, he could just see Heather’s expression, the tightness in her eyes and the press of her lips, the nerves relaxing into surprise as the Nadder leant into her hand with a soft rumble that could not in anyone’s mind seem aggressive. Hiccup slowly drew his hand away, leaving just Heather touching the Nadder, and saw the softening of her expression as the dragon leant into her, the creature themselves visible beneath the shackles and the stories of fear.

“There we go,” he said softly. It helped, at least a little, to see something coming of this. He stepped back, and Heather did not even seem to notice, her left hand coming to rest cautiously on the Nadder’s jaw and automatically falling away from both the muzzle and the signs of injury.

And she had never met a dragon before.

It was almost too much, everything swirling in his tiredness-dulled head at once, but he heard the sound of shifting metal and leather and knew that it was Alvin. Probably growing impatient. Swallowing back everything that he did not have time to feel, Hiccup put his hand on Heather’s arm again.

“There,” he said. “He won’t growl at you now, or anything of that sort. You should be able to clean in here easily enough.”

“Thank you,” said Heather, turning back to him in the middle of saying it so that he was not even sure who it was more meant for. She dropped her hands away from the dragon in a way that Hiccup was tempted to call reluctant, and followed Hiccup back out of the cell to retrieve the shovel and barrow that Alvin nodded her towards.

Elsa went to pick up the other shovel, but stopped dead as Alvin’s hand came to rest heavily on her shoulder. Hiccup saw the flash of anger in her eyes, the way that her fists clenched, but then she flinched bodily and her hands spasmed open again. Her magic, Hiccup could only assume. He strode towards her, ignoring Alvin’s glare until the other Outcast grabbed him by the upper arm and hauled him backwards so hard that he thought for a moment his shoulder would be dragged from its socket. A hiss escaped him as he was dragged back.

“No,” said Alvin, calmly, as if nothing was amiss still. Hiccup glared at him; Elsa seemed to be refusing to turn around. “Different pens. And this time,” he squeezed Elsa’s shoulder, “she can go in by herself.”

“Alvin, I’m the one that–”

“You’ve said your father has a dragon. Looks like she doesn’t, or she wouldn’t’ve been flying with you,” said Alvin, voice sharper, “but I’m willing to wager she knows a little bit about dragons herself.”

“It’s not you doing the wagering.”

“All the better for me, then.” Alvin finally removed his hand, and waved to the pens. “Tell you what, I’ll even let you take your pick.”

Elsa had not even seen the other dragons, but Hiccup did not even have to ask in order to know that Alvin was quite aware of that. He had a suspicion that was part of what Alvin was testing, waiting to see how Elsa would respond. For the first moment, she did nothing, simply kept her eyes on Hiccup.

There was nothing else that he could do; he nodded minutely, and saw her shoulders sink as she realised that he did not quite know what he was doing either.

She had already seen the first Gronckle, and the first Nadder, but now she turned to continue along the line. Hiccup had no doubt that it was largely to see what dragons there were, and what state they were in, rather than to ‘pick’ one. She walked past the Nightmare, hesitated at the sight of Toothless, and seemed to draw herself on reluctantly. It would not take a genius to know that Alvin would not let anyone in with Toothless unless it were an absolute necessity.

Outside the cell of the dragon he could not name, she slowed, and he expected confusion to cross her face but instead she was staring, transfixed. There was a low dragon growl, and just by not recognising the species Hiccup knew that it had to be the dragon she was looking at. It all seemed to happen in a moment; Elsa’s eyes went wide, she shied back a pace, then her hands clutched to her chest and she fell forwards, barely catching herself on the ground as she went to her knees.

It was probably only the suddenness which meant that Hiccup was able to pull himself free from the man holding him and bolt to Elsa’s side. He skidded to his knees beside her on the rock, ignoring the grating pain, and put an arm around her shoulders without thinking. Her back was icy beneath his touch, her breathing ragged and hissed, and when Hiccup looked up at the dragon he felt the wave of anger and pain worse than the day before, so intense that it seemed to cloud his vision red.

He looked back to Elsa again, clinging to thoughts of her. The anger pressed around him like a cloak until he wanted to scream, wanted to feel a weapon in his hands or let his hands _be_ weapons, as if they were tipped with talons to slash and to kill, but he made himself focus on Elsa and the concern and love that bubbled in the centre of his chest.

“Elsa,” he said. It seemed hard to hear beneath the pounding in his head, the rushing sound of his blood. “Elsa, listen to me. Can you hear me? Elsa?”

She shuddered, and he was not even sure it was a response. He pulled her to his chest as best he could, ignoring the stinging cold where she pressed against him, and pressed his forehead to her hair. The fury – the _dragon’s_ fury, it had to be – swelled and raged against him, but through it he felt the first tendril of curiosity, uncertainty, as Hiccup held Elsa closely.

It was hard to think, as if most of his mind was taken up with another being’s rage. He clung to Elsa, remembered how it had felt when they had first been able to talk, to really talk; the day she had come to the village and braved everything to get him out of the jail cell; her expression, bewildered, happy, at the Thawfest Games; the moment she and Anna had been dragged soaking from the Bay of Arendelle and she had looked as if the world had become a dream. Every moment he had seen over the last year, he bundled up and held on tightly to, and somehow he felt the anger _draw back_.

He dared to look up, and saw that the dragon no longer had their teeth bared, and that their head was slightly tilted as they regarded Hiccup and Elsa. Tendrils of curiosity seemed to brush over them like actual, physical things, and Hiccup closed his eyes again and thought of Toothless, that rush whenever he chose to press his nose to Hiccup’s hand, the feeling of _flying_ , at one with the dragon and barely separate from the sky, the warmth that came from curling beneath the Night Fury’s wing and hearing the slow pounding heartbeat through his warm flank.

The anger faded further, like an ebbing wave, and though Elsa was still shaking he could hear her breath coming more easily, and her skin grew less cold to the touch. Uncertainty, curiosity, all tinged with a gentleness that was undeniably dragon in nature, took its place, less oppressive and less intruding.

“Elsa?” said Hiccup again. This time, she looked up, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. He could not hear movement behind them, and hoped that it meant that Alvin, the other Outcast, and Heather were still at a safe distance. “Can you hear me now?”

She nodded. “It felt like…”

The word trailed away. “Yeah,” said Hiccup. “I think that’s… what they do.” Something about the dragon, something that had this effect on people. He wondered how badly Alvin’s men had reacted; Alvin had said something about them refusing to guard them. “Are you all right?”

Elsa knelt up, drawing her hand away from her chest where it had been splayed across her ribs. Her fingers were red and blistered, some of them tinged with blue. Without thinking, Hiccup grabbed her hand, and she winced but did not even slightly pull her fingers away. He gently tapped her fingertips, right over the blisters, but they were hard to the touch.

“Can you feel that?”

“No… not really, no.”

“It’s all right,” said Hiccup. “It’s just frostbite. It’ll heal.” How Elsa, of all people, had frostbite on her fingers in a warm and stuffy room, he did not much want to know. “Come on.”

He got to his feet, metal foot to the ground first, and carefully drew Elsa up as well. She closed her eyes, and he saw the flicker of anger in her pinched lips again, but this time something told him that the anger was at least her own. The dragon in the cell beside them made a gruff, grunting sound, but at least it was not another growl.

“Not that one,” he said softly.

“Not that one,” Elsa echoed.

She slipped her hands out of his, and turned away from him to walk past the other dragons, the second Nadder and the second Gronckle, and paused at the end to look for a long time at the Scauldron in their pool. By the time that she came back down the corridor, her face was schooled calm again, the tears mostly dry on her cheeks, even if both of them knew that Alvin had seen what had happened.

As she passed Hiccup, she met his eyes just for a moment, but did not say anything. Respecting her silence, he turned back to the dragon in their cell, and wondered just what they were, and just what they were capable of. They tilted their head again within the muzzle, purple and blue rippling in thick bands across the huge fin that crowned them, and made a rattling, clattering sound.

The air felt significantly less oppressive, even if it still stank. He glanced over to see Elsa pick up the second of the shovels without acknowledging Alvin, or Heather who was still watching them with fear not entirely hidden on her face. Elsa took up the handles of the wheelbarrow without comment and crossed to the pen of the first Gronckle, setting it just outside and laying the shovel across the top. She turned, and finally looked at Alvin. Pointedly.

He turned to his companion. “Unlock it.”

Even from where he stood, Hiccup could see the calculation in Alvin’s stance, the way that he was watching everything. Elsa said nothing as the door was opening, and when she stepped into the cell she was out of Hiccup’s line of sight. But it was only a few short moments before Alvin nodded, apparently to himself.

“Right,” he said. “Then you work with that one, and you,” he pointed at Heather, “with that Nadder. I’ve got words to be having.”

Hiccup should have expected it, he knew, and steeled himself and raised his chin as Alvin made down the corridor towards him. Emotions were still fighting inside Hiccup’s gut, and in their turmoil nothing was rising close enough to the surface to break through; the look that he gave Alvin was almost dispassionate.

“So,” said Alvin, as he approached, “what just happened?”

Something that, given a choice, he would never have allowed Alvin to see. “You said yourself that the dragon affects people,” said Hiccup. “Your men won’t guard them, fine. But Elsa won’t be working with them either.”

“I doubt I need to say that my men didn’t ‘ave _that_ happen.”

The dragon looked straight at Alvin, and hissed, showing their teeth again. Red bloomed on their scales, and Hiccup felt the swell of anger like a pressure on his skin.

“Looks like responses vary,” said Hiccup, keeping his words tight. “What about you, Alvin? Can you even begin to feel it?”

Alvin looked at him, green eyes boring against the stone of Hiccup’s anger. “Oh, I feel it. But I know what’s in my head and what ain’t. Now, I believe you was working with a dragon as well.”

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup returned to the work of the previous day. He could hear the scraping of shovels on stone, two different rhythms that let him know that Elsa and Heather were still working, and let them fade into the background. When he approached the Nightmare again, the dragon’s eyes closed in acceptance, and the press of the nose was almost eager; Hiccup did not ask for permission before undoing the muzzle and checking on the wounds again. Most of them looked clean, only one looking to have any pus, and he cleaned it out in gentle motions.

When he left the muzzle off while returning to the wings, he expected to be censured for it, and was not sure what to make of nothing being said at all. It was just another sharp-edged stone rolling around the inside of his sore mind, though, and he put it aside, trying to find a rhythm of his own for washing and testing the membrane of the Nightmare’s wing. Unfortunately, it was almost too easy, and there was nothing to constrain his thoughts.

The buckle was fake.

The buckle was a fake and now he did not even have it; Alvin had taken it back, hidden it somewhere in the maze of caves that was Outcast Island. Perhaps it would be better if Stoick never knew exactly what had been used to lure Hiccup away, if he did not go through that terrible false hope and the hollow ache in his chest.

Hiccup remembered his mother. He had to, he was sure that he did, the sound of her voice and the feel of how she had held him and the faintest, faintest impression of how she had looked. But it had been so long ago, and he certainly remembered nothing else from those times. He would have doubted it, but he could not bear to doubt this.

Never had Stoick said outright what had happened, and Hiccup was not sure just when he had worked it out, but somewhere along the lines of his life he had. And he had known as much as anyone else had, until for one terrible, shining moment he had held what he had thought was a buckle and a clue and a chance to know something more. Or if there was no more, to at least know that there was nothing else out there to be known.

He tried to push the thoughts aside, concentrate on the movements of cloth and soap and fingers testing for bruises or tiny tears. But there was not enough there to hold his mind. It always had been too busy for his own good.

Alvin was working on a fifteen-year-old memory. If he had just shown Gobber, perhaps the trick would have been exposed sooner, Gobber seeing something that would mark the buckle as not being his own creation. Or if Hiccup had not gone searching in his mother’s journals again; then, at least, he would never have known about the Bewilderbeast at all.

His hands shook. He thought at first that he might cry, but his eyes felt too dry and sore, as if he had already been through fits of tears. He wanted to hide beneath Toothless’s wings, but more than that he wanted to apologise, to his father and Gobber and everyone at home for disappearing on them, even more to Elsa for dragging her along on this.

Six days, and counting. He knew it would be several more before he had a chance of managing to escape.

If he could be around even one of the dragons, unsupervised, he could get them all free, get them out. Toothless might have to be carried, but they could do it. But he could not imagine leaving Toothless’s tail and saddle and connecting rod behind; they were part of Toothless, too intimate to leave in the Outcasts’ hands. Besides the knowledge that Alvin might be smart enough to gain from them. There were other personal effects there as well – some of his notes, some sketches of maps, the two Gronckle iron knives and his shield – but the saddle and tail still felt worst of all.

He clung to the threads of ideas. They, at least, had a chance of distracting him. He needed to know where their things were being stored – aside from the one knife which Alvin seemed to be carrying – before he could work out how to get them back. Perhaps there were things of Heather’s there, as well; he suspected she would appreciate freedom above anything else, but it still felt right to at least attempt to retrieve her things. And he could not very well just ask Alvin; Alvin would know Hiccup was planning to leave, of course he was, but it would surely be better to let him think that Hiccup was still working on plans and scraps of ideas, rather than trying to draw something together.

All three of them around the dragons. It was a start.


	15. Chapter 15

He refused to leave until he saw the dragons fed that evening, and stood his ground even as Elsa and Heather were led back to the cells by Clenchjaw and some other Outcast who had come to collect them. Alvin rolled his eyes and made it clear that he thought that Hiccup was being dramatic, but did eventually allow him to wait as the buckets of fish and guts were bought in, as well as a large bucket of bones. Without comment, Hiccup picked up a rock from the ground and smashed up the bones into smaller pieces.

“Your men should bring limestone or chalk tomorrow,” he said to Alvin, as he dropped the rock aside again. It was granite; too hard, and not enough nutrients for the Gronckles or the Nadders. “As well as this.”

Some of the buckets were more full than others, and he nudged them around with his good foot, into ones that looked to be the right portions for the Nadders compared to what the Gronckles or Nightmare would need. The unknown dragon would be somewhere in between, to judge by its size, and the Scauldron would need the most of all. It looked like the portions in the buckets would be about right, if a little light for what Hiccup would rather give dragons that needed to build up their strength; Alvin must have been listening. He wasn’t sure whether that was good, or worrying.

“Any other requests?” said Alvin dryly.

“They aren’t requests.” Hiccup picked up one of the buckets that would do for the Gronckles. “They’re necessities. I’ll feed them.”

It had been Snotlout who had first said ‘feeding time is bonding time’, back when he was refusing to let anyone else feed Hookfang, but Hiccup would have to admit that he was right. It had been fish which had first gotten him close to Toothless, and he hoped that it would be fish that got him close to all of the dragons now.

“Fine,” said Alvin. Having his men lugging around buckets of fish guts probably didn’t seem like the most appealing idea. “Glum, open up that first one for ‘im.”

Hiccup added a portion of the bone pieces to the fish, ignoring how the blood and bone dust was getting under his nails, and entered the cage of the Gronckle. Elsa had apparently introduced herself perfectly well, and now the dragon was regarding Hiccup with a look that was both wary and interested, their eyes following him closely.

There was dragon nip in his pack, among his things, but he did not want Alvin to know about that if it could be avoided. Every secret that he told already felt like a fraction of his own betrayal. Hiccup kept it simple, scooping up a piece of bone and a chunk of fish that looked relatively fresh and hopefully appetising to a dragon, and dropped to his knees to offer it up, eyes averted but head not turned away.

The Gronckle sniffed at his hand, rumbled, and he heard the movement of their jaw and tongue in what probably would have been a lick of their lips had they not been so muzzled. With a sigh of relief, Hiccup put down the bucket in front of them, put the bone and fish back into it, and set about undoing the buckles on their snout.

He heard Glum say something to Alvin, but did not catch the words, and concentrated on getting the muzzle completely off. The Gronckle yawned hugely, displaying every one of their teeth and wafting Hiccup with a terrible example of dragon breath, but he did not flinch even with their jaws gaping right in front of him. There was a whiff of gas to their breath; clearly they were still capable of firing.

When he nudged the bucket of fish in front of them, they dove in like a child seeing their first food in days, grunting and snarfing to themselves, and knocking the bucket over and sticking in their long tongue to try to get to the very bottom of it. Before Hiccup could stop them, they also took a bite out of the bucket itself, shearing straight through wood and iron in one solid bite. He dragged the bucket away, and they half-heartedly lunged after it, but was stopped by their chains and looked at him pathetically instead.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Alvin.

“No less edible than a shirt,” Hiccup retorted. He was still crouched in the cell, having risen up off his knees where they still ached and were marked with blood from falling to the ground beside Elsa. “And it’s either overexcitement or hunger that makes them do that. I doubt it’s overexcitement down here, unless eating is that rare of an event for them.”

Even from a distance, he could see Alvin’s roll of his eyes. With a shake of his head, Hiccup gently put the muzzle back on, checking to make sure that it was the same comfortable sort of fit that the Nightmare’s now was.

The door was locked behind him when he exited, and he repeated the pattern with the young Nadder and the Nightmare. The Nightmare now had a loose bag of dragon leather over his muzzle, just as Toothless did, and he snorted and huffed when it was removed. This time, there was no pus in the scabs forming, and Hiccup let the Nightmare eat before washing out his mouth again and being gentle with the straps when he put them back into place.

When he returned to pick up one of the smaller buckets for Toothless, however, Alvin reached out and grabbed his wrist, fast as a striking snake. “And if you think you’re feeding that Night Fury,” he said, tone almost reasonable if you did not know who he was, “you must think me a fool indeed.”

Hiccup met his eyes unwaveringly. “Then good luck.”

It must have occurred to Glum at around this point that he was the only other one in the room and would therefore be the one feeding Toothless, as a look of panic twitched across his face. Either Alvin did not notice or did not care, however, as he waved for Hiccup to stand aside, then looked pointedly at Glum.

For a moment, it looked like the man was considering refusing, then he picked up the bucket and walked down towards Toothless’s cell. He let himself in, and there was a nervous pause amid jangling chains before a heavy thump sounded. Hiccup’s heart leapt into his chest, and he went to start forward but Alvin’s hand fell hard on his shoulder and all that he could do was listen, trying to keep his own breathing slow and quiet.

There was a flapping sound, like Toothless shaking his head, then another faint metallic sound. The bucket scraped against the floor, and there were a few seconds of silence, followed by the building whine Hiccup knew so well and, with a flash of purple-white light, the boom of a Night Fury blast. With a shriek, Glum bolted out of the cell again, fish guts splattering his clothes and face.

Toothless growled.

Hiccup looked up at Alvin. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

With a wordless snarl, Alvin started down the corridor, steering Hiccup ahead of him with the hand still on his shoulder. Glum had backed out of the line of Toothless’s cell, and turned paler in the darkness as Toothless roared after him.

Hiccup and Alvin appeared at the edge of the cell, and Toothless whipped his head round to face them. He was on all fours on the ground, though still with his wings bound and a collar around his neck, flaps back and teeth extended as he growled at them both.

“Are you sure your dragon hasn’t gone mad?” said Alvin.

The blast of a Night Fury could be so precise that Toothless would have been able to hit Alvin without so much as singing Hiccup’s hair. But it would do them no good, not really, and Hiccup shook his head. Toothless retracted his teeth as his posture softened, opening his eyes fully again. His legs stayed braced, though, and his flaps stayed back.

“I think he’s more angry at the way he and I are being treated.” Knowing Toothless, he was probably more angry about Hiccup’s treatment, just as Hiccup was more angry about the dragons’. “Not all dragons have the same temperaments, Alvin. And you know what they say about dragons holding grudges.”

“To the death,” muttered Alvin, almost under his breath and derisively. He did not move from where he was stood behind Hiccup, however. “Well, talk some sense into him. It’s all very well you arguing about how they should be treated, if he’s not going to accept what he’s given.”

He looked into Toothless’s eyes, the deep near-glowing green, and felt too aware of his heart in his chest. “Night Furies can be difficult,” said Hiccup, making a snap decision. “I won’t force him to eat; I don’t want him regurgitating his food.” Honestly, Terrible Terrors were far worse for that, but he was not going to say that part. “If you think the dung smells bad,” he added, more dryly, “you should smell the vomit. And with that bag on there would be a risk of him inhaling it, and I am not risking a dragon’s life like that.”

“Do they all do that?” said Alvin. There was a touch of uncertainty in his voice. Good.

Hiccup shrugged. “Some more, some less. Snakes and lizards are just the same, Alvin; why did you expect dragons to be different?” He did not look around, even as Alvin growled vaguely. “I’m presuming that you water them in the mornings, before bringing me in.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be better off for one day without food than a risk of vomiting,” said Hiccup. He did not know why Toothless had refused the food, whether it had contained eel or whether Toothless was just understandably angry. But he would support the decision. Let Alvin fret. “But having him strapped up like that might not be helping. The gods didn’t design his body to be in that position. Night Furies are tough, but you could be risking damage.”

Considering he had seen Toothless sleeping upside down, he knew that part was a lie. Dragons were far more capable than humans of being held in different ways, it seemed. But Alvin would not know that.

“And you choose now to tell us this? After two days already?”

That was a hole in the argument, Hiccup had to admit, and Alvin’s somewhat disbelieving tone had a point. Instead he rolled his eyes, making sure he was at just such an angle that Alvin would be able to see. “When I came in after one morning and he was fine, it was clear that he wasn’t in immediate danger. And I needed to know that you’d listen to me, and not just think I was lying to you.” He gave Alvin his best challenging look. “After all you’ve seen, will you believe me?”

He could see Alvin grinding his teeth as he looked back and forth between Hiccup and Toothless. “All right. He stays down. But believe me, boy,” he added, grabbing Hiccup’s arm in a grip like a vice, so tight it would surely bruise, and bending down until they were face-to-face, “if I have reason to believe you are lying, I know that dragon can take more punishment than you or your friend. So think very carefully about what you say.”

 

 

 

 

 

He left the strange dragon until last, not particularly worried about the others even if the Scauldron hissed at him and waited until Hiccup had backed out of the cell before deigning to eat. He was still not sure whether they were male or female, but considering their defensiveness made them more like Girl Hookfang than any other dragon that Hiccup had seen, he found himself thinking of them as female. She did, at least, seem to appreciate that he poured a bucket of water over her head and neck, rather than throwing it vaguely in her direction.

Some of the bones had been kept back for the strange dragon; Hiccup did not know whether they would want to eat them, and if they did not he was fairly confident that Alvin would allow him to keep them for one of the other dragons the next day. As he stood in front of the cage, bucket in hand, the dragon growled at him and regarded him warily, head tone and shifting her weight from foot to foot. Again, he had no clue as to the sex, but she didn’t seem to be annoyed about being called a ‘her’ and considering he had been completely wrong with the injured Nadder the previous winter he knew that he had great potential to get it wrong.

Red patches flashed on her body and on her fin, so bright near the edges that it might have passed for blood. Hiccup felt the anger against his mind again, felt his hands start to shake and his heart start to beat faster with the force of it, but he knew now that it was from the dragon and that alone made it easier to handle. He concentrated again on thoughts of Toothless, the trust it took to fall from the saddle into the open air and that incredible, heart-spilling moment when Toothless caught him again and they snapped back into the skies. The feeling of safety and _home_ that came from knowing that Toothless was sleeping on the far side of his room, hearing his occasional gentle snores in the darkness. The love that felt as if it was going to overwhelm Hiccup whenever he looked into Toothless’s eyes.

The red faded, giving way to purple and blue again, and Hiccup felt the anger fade along with it. Curiosity and welcoming brushed against him, and the dragon padded forwards to the end of her chains to sniff Hiccup and the bucket of food in his hands. She tried to open her mouth, rattling the muzzle; orange-red showed on her skin, and Hiccup felt a stab of frustration almost as if it were his own.

Moving slowly, smoothly, he put the bucket down and reached for the muzzle around her snout. Snorting, she moved back, yellow flushing on her skin, but he held his ground and reached out his hand, thinking of every time that he had ever done so for Toothless, every time that Toothless had reciprocated, and everything that it meant.

How it was working, he did not know, but it was. Blue grew to dominate the dragon’s skin, and Hiccup felt happiness and hope welling in – no, not in his chest, _against_ his chest, with a strange foreignness to the feeling. If that was what she was feeling, though, then he knew that there was hope indeed, and he straightened out his arm to offer his hand to her a little more closely.

She huffed against his skin, then pressed her nose to his hand, and he was quite sure that the relief and joy that rushed in his veins was entirely his own. He smiled, a true smile for the first time in these cells, and let her rub her nose into his palm and snuffle at his skin before tilting her head and all but trying to rub into his cheek.

Quickly, he stepped up and undid her muzzle, watching the blue and purple and white swirling and pulsing all across her skin. She needed no guidance to immediately lower her head to the bucket and devour the food, gulping it down without even bothering to break up the pieces with her teeth. The bone went with the fish; clearly she was not a picky eater. Hiccup ran his hand over her forehead, but when he almost touched the large fin at the top of her head she jerked her head away and looked at him warily again.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He switched his hand to her shoulder, stroking gently, and with a snort she returned to the bucket of food. Like the Gronckle, like all of the other dragons, she licked the wood clean when she was done, and only gave a faint rumble of displeasure when Hiccup put her muzzle back on. Like all of them, he made sure it was one hole looser than it had been when he had undone it.

“Well, well,” said Alvin, as Hiccup picked up the bucket and exited the cell again. “Looks like you’re picking up the ways of that one.”

“Strangely enough, being kind to them pays off,” Hiccup replied, just a little acerbically. He dropped the bucket to the floor between them, watching the glitter in Alvin’s eye and knowing that something more was coming.

“How do you do it, then?”

Instinct, and gut feeling, and apparently something that none of the Outcasts had even thought to try. This time, Hiccup knew that his smile was grim, and did not reach his eyes. There was no triumph behind it. “If you want to know that, I want something for it,” he said simply.

Alvin reached up, scratching his chin through his beard. “Oh?” he said, drawing the word out just slightly.

“How long have you had each of the dragons? These ones right now, individually.”

A huff. “You never do ask the interesting questions, do you, Hiccup? From that end to this,” he said, pointing towards the Scauldron. “One and ‘alf moons, one and ‘alf moons, two moons, two moons;” Hiccup scrambled to catch up with the rapid-fire words, refusing to ask for a repeat. The Scauldron, the old Gronckle, the second Nadder and the mystery dragon, he noted. Alvin pointed to Toothless’s cell. “Well, you know that one… had it come vacant just a few days ago, and didn’t want a Night Fury in the first cell in the line. Then four moons for each of those two;” the Nightmare and the wheezing Nadder; “and just shy of half a year for this one.” Alvin cocked an eyebrow at Hiccup. “Tough old bird, that one.”

The height of summer, the equinox, was just over two moons ago. Hiccup thought of frostbite, and was fairly sure he knew could see the pattern emerging.

“Two moons, and you haven’t figured it out?” said Hiccup. He felt somehow lighter; if Alvin thought his questions were inane, perhaps that was all the better. “Just think happy thoughts.”

 

 

 

 

 

“So,” said Heather, when Hiccup had been returned to his cell again, and they had all been given their water, fish and cheese, and left to try to eat it. “That’s what dragons are like.”

“It’s what they can be like, if we let them,” Hiccup said. He looked Heather over carefully; she was picking at the encrusted grime beneath her nails, still frowning. The cheese sat untouched in her lap. “I’m… sorry that’s how you had to first face them.”

“I always thought we had to stay away from dragons because they were so dangerous. But you just… walked right up.”

“You do still need to be careful. I mean, dragons are powerful and intelligent, and that,” he shrugged with a clink of chains, “that’s a sort of dangerous, I guess. But Berk has realised that dragons can be more than that.”

Finally, she looked up from her hands, fixing her eyes on him. “ _You_ realised, right?”

Hiccup nodded.

“And that’s why Alvin set that trap for you.”

“Pretty much.”

“Wow.” Heather shook her head. “An island with _dragons_ as – as weapons? Is that what Berk has?”

He almost fell over himself to say no, until he realised that he still had to assume the Outcasts were listening at all times. “That’s what Alvin wants to have.”

Heather went as if to say something, then caught herself, eyes widening. “Oh, gods. Your friend. Is she all right? I asked her when we got back into the cells, but she sort of…”

“Didn’t really answer,” Hiccup guessed, softly. “Elsa can be pretty private. It’s just, one of the dragons, it has a bad effect on some people.” That was, after all, not a lie. “Elsa’s was the worst response I’ve seen;” from his sample of two; “and Alvin said much the same thing. She’ll be fine. I won’t put her near them again.”

Only with the knowledge of what Hiccup had done would he let Elsa even consider going near her. And even then, it would be her choice. The words came out a little more viciously than he had at first intended, and Heather looked surprised for a moment before nodding, expression softening. “Sounds like you’re looking out for her,” she said.

“Always.” It may have been his imagination that Heather’s eyes looked slightly damp, and he certainly did not know how he could mention such a thing. “Look, tomorrow… if I ask about you doing the same thing again, would you be all right with that?” Heather looked astonished. “I mean, there’s another Nadder, if that’s easiest. But I didn’t want to just drag you along without asking.”

She smiled without too much humour. “I didn’t get the impression Alvin was really _asking_ this morning.”

She did have a point. On the other hand, such a move would not take Hiccup so totally by surprise a second time. “I’m not afraid of Alvin.”

He saw the pain in her eyes for an instant before she managed to look away. “I’d imagine a lot of people are.”

“Well, I’ve met Alvin before,” said Hiccup. Another look of surprise; clearly the Outcasts had not told her about the difficulties their ‘up-and-coming island’ had been facing. “Last year, deeper into autumn than this.”

“And you got away from him them?”

“I let him go.”

She stayed silent for a long few moments. “If it’s only cleaning the dragons, that’s fine. But if you ask me to approach them, to do anything else with them,” she added, voice trembling a little, and Hiccup felt his heart clench warily in his chest, “then I’ll do that as well, but only at your say. I trust you.” Her green eyes fixed on him again. “I trust what you say with them.”

He wasn’t even sure how to reply. “Thank you,” he said, but it still did not feel like enough.

 

 

 

 

 

There were attacks again that night, and Hiccup watched the fire through the hole in their roof. It was cold enough that it would have been hard to sleep anyway, not quite cold enough to shiver but enough for the rock to leech the heat from his bones. He saw the bright fire of a Nadder, the lava of a Gronckle, heard the distinctive roar of a Nightmare. A chill ran down his spine when he heard that haunting percussive roar which had to be a Whispering Death, and there were sounds which he did not recognise either because they were other species or because the rock and distance had distorted them. Either way, it was clear that Outcast Island was under a substantial assault.

The sky lightened briefly, but then turned dark with clouds, and he heard thunder in the distance not long before the rain began pouring down. Water ran straight through the cell, and Hiccup was almost relieved when Alvin and Swordripper reappeared to give them their morning water and remove Hiccup from his cell.

A bloody gash ran down Alvin’s right wrist and across the back of his hand, visible either side of the bandage roughly wound over it. “Looks like you had a busy night,” said Hiccup dryly, as he straightened out his sore legs and ignored the throbbing pain in his stump.

“Those sort of comments go down well on Berk?” growled Alvin, his meaning more than clear enough. “Let’s get moving.”

“I want both of them again today,” said Hiccup, before taking another step. “There’s still four dragons that need their pens cleaning, and if you and your men are so busy,” he added, letting his tone become just a little pointed, “then I’d imagine it’s easier to spare us for shovelling shit than it is to spare them.”

Alvin chewed it over, his gaze never leaving Hiccup’s. Hiccup had the feeling that Alvin was trying to reach inside his head as well, but if he was then it was a lot less successful than the dragon’s attempts. “Fine,” said Alvin finally. “Like yesterday.”

Hiccup set Elsa to cleaning out the pen of the second Nadder, once she had greeted them, and after a moment’s thought waved for Heather to join him in front of the mystery dragon. She did so cautiously, keeping her eyes fixed on the cell from the moment that it came into view, but as the dragon tracked her across the front of the cell Hiccup saw mostly purple, and a little yellow, on her skin. Those seemed to be good colours.

“You all right?” he said to Heather, once they were both standing right in front of her.

She nodded. “I think so. It feels…” a faint grimace, but she was not running away or falling down so Hiccup would call it a success so far. “It feels like when you wake up, and you’re still dreaming a bit.”

Trust a skald’s daughter to come up with an evocative way to put it, but at least it made it clear. “Will you be able to work with that?” said Hiccup. “If not, she can wait, I can handle her.”

“No, I think I’m all right,” said Heather, quickly. She kept her eyes on the dragon, and it tilted its head at her curiously, tail down and still, chin up and not defensive. There were some things that were common to all dragons. “Is it – is she – like the other one? The same way?”

“Not quite,” said Hiccup. “They all vary a bit. But again, the calm, the body language, that’s important.” This time he did not have to prompt her further; she shook her shoulders slightly, loosened her stance, and took a deep breath. Set her eyes firmly on the dragon. “All right, when you get closer you might… feel more from it. Like it’s afraid, or wary of you. That’s natural for a dragon to feel, we’re strangers to them. So what I’ll need you to do is concentrate on good feelings. Good memories.”

“Good memories?” For a moment her focus slipped, and she frowned at him.

He nodded. “I don’t know how it works, but… it does.” Or at least it had, twice. He searched through what she had said about herself. “Your family, right? Think of good times with them. About what it feels like to see them again. Snoggletogs. Birthdays. All those stupid stories that parents have about you from when you’re a kid, and they have to tell everyone about the time you fell in a river because you were looking for trolls,” he added, which was not at all a guess but his own experience with what Gobber could be like, but it seemed to work because Heather laughed, tight and nervous but a laugh all the same. “Yeah, those stories. Think about those moments, and keep your eyes on her as you approach. Hand up, like with the Nadder.”

It only took a gentle touch to the underside of her elbow, and she raised her hand just as he had shown her the day before, not locked and threatening but offering her flat – empty, weaponless – palm. Hiccup stepped back out of the way as Heather approached the dragon, whose yellow-purple gave way to blues and whites, until with a soft sound that was almost a croon the dragon nudged her nose into Heather’s palm.

Heather gave a faint, amazed laugh, and cradled the dragon’s snout in both of her hands, looking at it as if it were the most amazing discovery she had ever made. Despite everything, it was enough to make Hiccup smile, and he waited to see Heather stroke the dragon’s nose, in cautiously slow movements, before clearing his throat and proffering her the shovel when she looked around.

“Sorry,” he said.

She shook her head as she took the shovel, message more than clear enough. It wasn’t him that was doing this.

Knowing that the days were ticking away, Hiccup sped up his check of the Nightmare, washing the mouth out as quickly as he could without risking pain and moving on to the second wing. He did not have time for the fingertip search with which he had started, and had to settle for quicker sweeps of his hand, concentrating hard to make sure that his eyes did not skip sections of membrane. He was just nearing the end of the wing when footsteps stomped down the corridor towards them, and he glanced up to see Savage stalking in.

“Alvin,” said Savage, “the answer’s come from the B–”

“Not ‘ere,” Alvin barked, rising sharply to his feet. He towered over Savage. Alvin looked around them warily, eyes lingering on Hiccup, but Hiccup did not look up from the wing he was finishing off and watched only from his peripheral vision. “Outside.”

They left the room again, and Hiccup drummed his fingers on his leg for a moment in annoyance, but did not have time to wonder. He brushed off the last loose water from the Nightmare’s wing, then crawled in close to check out the dragon’s feet. The claws were a little overgrown, from lack of movement, but he could not cut or file them with the tools Alvin had at hand. All the same, the main problem was the dirt. He sat cross-legged, head bowed, while the Nightmare awkwardly half-sat so that he could clean one foot at a time, with claws as long as his forearm draped casually over his thigh.

He was faintly aware of the sound of Alvin entering the room again, but did not look round for it, more concerned with the ground-in dirt that could be damaging the Nightmare’s skin. There was a lot of soreness around the base of the dragon’s claws, and occasionally there would be grunts and rumbles from above him, but Hiccup knew that the sounds were nothing major, and just kept working.

He had to get the dragons fit again. Leaving without them was not an option; more than that, he suspected that he would need them for any sort of escape.

“Good timing,” said Alvin, just as Hiccup was crawling out from beneath the Nightmare again and trying to wash his hands and forearms as best he could. Hiccup looked up. “Looks like your students there are nearly done as well.”

What Heather was learning was not all that much like what they had taught at the Academy, but Hiccup held his tongue on that. And Elsa just talked less about her knowledge than Hiccup did. “Oh?” Hiccup said. Somewhat ruefully, he went to buckle the Nightmare’s muzzle into place again. “Huh, of course,” he smacked himself on the temple, as if it had slipped his mind. “You’ve had the dragons less time, less shit to clear, yeah.”

Stoick would be hideously unimpressed at how much Hiccup had been cursing over the last few days; he didn’t need to, no matter how hard the chiefing got, and Hiccup did admire him for it. But Hiccup was sore and tired and angry, and if a few of Gobber’s more off-colour words from the forge helped to get him through the days then he was going to make full use of them.

“Well, I’d suggest you find more work for them, anyway,” said Alvin.

The cell door closed on the Nightmare, but it was one done. One ready. The wings had still seemed in good enough condition, the muscles of the shoulders not too wasted. The dragon would fly, even if he would be stiff and sore when he did so.

Shaking water off his hands, Hiccup made his way back down the line of pens, aware of Alvin’s eyes on him the whole time. He glanced in at Heather, who was midway through scrubbing the floor, and stopped with Elsa who was just sweeping out the last of the water. She looked up at Hiccup, pushing stray hair from her forehead with the back of her hand.

“How are you doing?” he said softly.

For an answer, she showed him the broom. For a moment, he looked at it dumbly, then he realised that the white streaks along it were ice, and stepped out of Alvin’s site and into the cell once again. Hearing the footsteps of Alvin’s approach, he knew that he only had seconds.

“When did this happen?”

“A while ago,” she whispered back, frantic-fast. “I did not mean it.”

“And it didn’t hurt?” A shake of the head. “There must be something causing–”

He cut short his words, and the ice faded from the broom, as Alvin approached. When he reached the corner, Hiccup kept his eyes on Elsa, half-expected a wrack of pain, but her expression does not even flicker.

“You heard the rules yesterday. No Arendellen, no sneaking around. Next task.”

Hiccup clenched his jaw until he felt a dull ache, and forced himself to release it again. “Alvin, if you can spare one of your men tomorrow, they can muck out and clean the second Gronckle’s cage. Then it would need to be regular.” Will, he should have said _will_ need, but it was too late now and all that he could do was press on. “If that’s the case, I can get Elsa and Heather doing more involved tasks with the dragons.”

Alvin nodded. “Go on.”

With a sigh, Hiccup turned to Elsa, slipping the broom of out her hands. There was a slight reluctance about her release, and he wondered if she was remembering the times that she had sparred with staffs against Astrid or one of the others. It was not the time, though. Not yet.

“Seven points?” he said. She nodded, but he knew that Alvin would want more anyway. “Nose, mouth, eyes, ears, feet, wings, tail.” Technically, arse should have been in there as well, but he did not particularly want to have Heather faced with that particular aspect of dragons just yet. Even if she’d already spent a day and a half shovelling the result of it.

“I know,” said Elsa softly.

“If the muzzles are coming off, they’ll need watching,” said Alvin. “I’ll have Clenchjaw stand over them. Clenchjaw!” he added, a great projection of his voice back down the corridor that rang on the stone walls. More footsteps started towards them.

“Wing check like this,” he said, brushing his left hand over the back of his right arm with the fingers lightly splayed. Elsa nodded again. Hiccup could not very well say aloud that they would have to go for a looser check because they did not have time for a more detailed one, but she would need the warning before losing a day or more to a fingertip check of the Nadder’s wings. Gronckles were about the only dragon for whom a fingertip check could be done in a half day. “I’ll explain it for Heather.”

He stepped out of the way, and Elsa did not hesitate about looking Alvin in the eye. “I will fetch water,” she said, and without waiting for his permission walking past and on down the corridor. Alvin watched her go with interest, not leering but calculating, and it disgusted Hiccup all the same. Setting the broom alongside the shovel on the opposite wall, Hiccup avoided both Clenchjaw’s stride and her glare as she took up a position where she could see into both the Nadder’s and the mystery dragon’s pen at once.

“So you’ve got a set system,” said Alvin, as Hiccup stopped to wait outside Heather’s cell. Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest. “Seven points.”

“Well, it’s not too hard to teach,” Hiccup said. “But I thought that you and your men might need a little mnemonic to help you remember. A memory aid,” he added, as if Alvin would not understand the word. Alvin scowled, but did not rise to the bait.

“It ain’t my men you’ll be explaining to first,” he said.

Heather glanced over at them both, then her pace sped up, sweeping away the grubby water and suds that still covered part of the strange dragon’s pen. Her clothes were stiff with dirt and sweat, Hiccup could see that more easily than ever when he saw her standing and moving around, and she was favouring one leg. Knee, not ankle, to judge by the way she was standing. He had plenty of experience with different injuries.

He did not say anything, just tried to wait patiently, even as the dragon fixed her gaze on Alvin and hissed a warning, red around her lips and flashing in her fin. Heather winced, and Hiccup felt the slap of anger like a choking red heat around him. His muscles tensed, and the urge was there, just for a moment, to _attack_ , Alvin or Clenchjaw or the whole island, and there was a bitter taste in the back of his throat like dragon gas.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Elsa approaching, and twitched one hand in her direction for her to hold back. The last thing that she needed was to feel another wave of anger like this one. Bucket of water in hand, she held back in front of Toothless’s cell, and gave a longing look through the bars to the Night Fury.

Then the dragon’s nose swung on from Alvin to Hiccup, and the red patterns and the anger both faded away at the same time. Well, Hiccup was pretty sure he could pinpoint that. He gave Elsa a minute nod, and turned to find Alvin regarding him curiously, like waiting for the outcome of an experiment.

Heather hastily brushed out the last of the water, a little sloppy but that was not surprising when she was under such scrutiny and with the dragon shifting nearby. “I’m done,” she said, eyes flickering between Alvin and Hiccup.

“All right,” said Hiccup, stepping up. “You still mean what you said yesterday evening?” He hoped that she knew what he was talking about, and by her confident nod either she did or she trusted him more than he felt like he deserved right now. “Good. We’re going to do what I’ve been calling a seven-point check. It usually finds any major problems. We’ll need the muzzle off for this, though.”

She hesitated, but her glance was towards Alvin.

“You might want to step back,” said Hiccup, also in Alvin’s direction. “This dragon doesn’t seem to have taken a liking to you. We’ll probably be all right to approach, but I’m not sure I can make promises about you not being fired at.”

Alvin opened his mouth, as if he was about to reprimand Hiccup for his smart comments – and gods knew that would not be the first time Hiccup had been reprimanded for such – then he looked back to the dragon. The dragon looked at him, and growled again deep in her throat.

With a sigh, Alvin crossed to the far side of the tunnel, right on the edge of the dragon’s view and more in front of Toothless’s pen. Probably far enough that he could dive out of the way of a fireball, but close enough to see. Unfortunately.

Hiccup turned back to Heather again. “So, you start from the nose. It’s nose and mouth,” he pointed to each in turn, “eyes, ears, feet, wings and tail.” Well, each body part that he had, at least. There was not much to be done about wings. “Moving from the front of the dragon to the back. If all seven of those are good, the dragon’s all right for the time being. I mean,” he waved vaguely, “barring massive injuries like blood or broken bones, but you can usually see those without having to get in close and check.”

She nodded. “All right.”

“How good’s your memory?”

A hint of a smile. “Skald.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” Even if her father was the one who would know thousands of words of poems and songs by heart, Heather doubtless had more than a few memory tricks of her own. To be fair, Hiccup could not even be sure that she did not know those same poems and songs. “Then I’ll run through it briefly with you, and leave you to it. I really need to check on that other Nadder.” The wheezing was worrying him.

“Just tell me what to do.”

 

 

 

 

 

He ran Heather through the basics of checking each body part, explaining that the wings would be the longest and most intensive job, and added with a pointed look at Alvin that if she needed help she should ask, and not risk doing something that might be dangerous for her or the dragon. Alvin did not reject the idea, which Hiccup would take for now as accepting.

When she said that she was comfortable enough with the idea, he went straight back to the first Nadder, hearing Alvin follow him back down the corridor. His leg was too sore for him to really stride, and he knew that Alvin was only a step behind by the time that he reached the readied buckets of water again.

“That one,” said Hiccup, with a nod to the Nadder. The mistreatment might have been making it hard to judge his age, but at least with a clean pen he had somewhere clear to hunker down. There was a greyish tinge to his yellow-green scales, and his underbelly looked almost white instead of the cream it should have been. Of all of them, he was the one that Hiccup was most uncertain about being able to help. “And I’ll need to look straight down his throat. With a lantern, preferably.”

Alvin unlocked the cell, then crossed to the outer door and shouted down it for one of his men to bring a lantern. Making sure that his sleeves were pushed up as far as they could go, Hiccup walked into the cell, moving into the blind spot almost automatically now, and let the Nadder thoroughly sniff him before offering a scratch beneath the chin. This close, he could already hear the Nadder’s breathing, fast and shallow with an unhealthy rattle about it.

He undid the muzzle, and the Nadder shook his head, scales whispering like sand. That was no good either; it meant they were too dry. Murmuring wordlessly, Hiccup knelt down beside the Nadder, gently coaxed him to move the wing aside, and leant his head against the dragon’s side.

Even with his eyes closed, he knew that it was not Toothless, not Stormfly, none of their dragons from Berk. The dragons in the arena had still received better treatment than this, kept at least strong enough to effectively fight. The dragon’s breath was rattling, fluid in his lungs, and all that Hiccup could say for a positive was that the heart was still thumping steadily away.

“I’ll try,” he promised the dragon softly, lifting his head again. He turned to see Alvin regarding him, and felt more exposed than angry as he pushed back to his feet. But all that he could do was try.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The same general warnings apply with regards to the mistreatment and threatening of dragons and humans here. Heather and Toothless see worse treatment, but it is still limited to minor injury.

Alvin was listening, which both relieved and worried him. There was limestone for the dragons among the food that was bought that evening, and he gestured for the women to be led away while Hiccup remained behind to oversee the feeding of the dragons again. Once again, Toothless refused to eat, even when it was Hiccup that placed the bucket of fish in front of him. One sniff of the fish, and he backed away as far as he could in his chains, growling and narrowing his eyes. Hiccup picked up the bucket and removed it from the cell without a word, to Alvin’s visible annoyance.

“What’s with that beast?” he said. “Is he a picky eater?” Alvin could not really make words sound prim, but it seemed that he was giving it his best go, mocking them at least. “What does he want me to do, go catch him some fresh rabbit?”

“Firstly,” said Hiccup, “I’d have a lot of questions about where you manage to get rabbit on an island like this. And secondly,” he set the bucket down again, “rabbit would be a bad idea anyway. Too lean. Even worse for the rest of them;” he gestured to the dragons. “They need all the food they can get.”

“So, what? Increase the portions? Is Berk that well-off now, that they’ve got food to spare? I remember ‘em going hungry,” said Alvin. “Same as we do now.”

Hiccup kept his mouth shut, trying to stare Alvin down. He did not know how it would be best, or worst, to reply.

“Ah,” said Alvin finally, drawing out the word. “Of course. It was the dragons taking the food, and now they ain’t. So you _do_ have food to spare. Well, well, well.”

“Yes, with that grand leap of logic you’ve truly caught us out,” Hiccup said. “And I don’t know about your people, but I don’t see you suffering for feeding.”

It came out before he could help himself, the sort of comment that he usually reserved for his father when he was just too frustrated about how his own skinny frame did not hold up to what was expected of Berkians. Hiccup’s first instinct was to wince, but he forced himself not to, and held his ground even as Alvin’s eyes narrowed and a marked sense of foreboding overcame him.

“Funny,” said Alvin finally. “I can see how yer wit made yer so popular. So Berk’s got itself a surfeit of food;” the word caught Hiccup by surprise, and he hoped that he managed not to show it; “and ‘ere’s the Outcasts foraging for mussels. Good thing no-one cares, eh? So maybe you’d best appreciate that we are making a sacrifice for these dragons, and stop with the smart mouth.”

Strangely, he did find himself feeling almost chastened by the words. Not quite, but close to; there was a bitterness and a bite to Alvin’s words that he did not think was faked. But then he reminded himself who he was dealing with, how Alvin was as capable of weaving together truth and lies as anyone else that Berk had ever dealt with, and bit back the impulse.

“The dragons didn’t make themselves captives,” he said. “You chose to put them there. You want that food again? Let them go.”

Alvin shook his head, scoffing.

“Yeah,” said Hiccup. “I thought so.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was as if he could feel the fragments of a plan. The next day, Hiccup was waiting for the Outcasts, ears pricking up from the moment that he heard movement outside. He was hoping that Alvin would bring at least one of the Outcasts with him to work with the dragons; if they cleaned the Gronckle and Scauldron pens, Hiccup could set Elsa and Heather to work with the two Gronckles while he continued to try to get the sick Nadder in a fit state to fly.

The next stage, well, he was still working on that.

He was not fully surprised when two Outcasts appeared to assist Alvin in accompanying them down to the dragon cells, though he was wary of the look in Alvin’s eyes as they did so. He knew in his gut that Alvin had something more planned for the day. All of the Outcasts were wearing those same mirrors in the place that rondels should have sat, and though Hiccup could not quite make sense of it, he was sure that there was something there as well. How long Alvin had been planning this, he had no idea; so far, he was not quite sure that he knew what all of Alvin’s plan was.

When they arrived, there were buckets of water and bars of soap waiting for them as usual, but Alvin’s chair had been pushed back against the wall. Heather seemed to notice it as well, her eyes lingering on it for longer than necessary, but she did not fight when she was held by the arm and pulled a few steps away from the others.

“All right,” said Hiccup. “I need to keep working with that Nadder – I presume that you’d tell me if they’d died in the night,” he added, with a sharp glance at Alvin. The Nadder was clearly tough, and he hoped that they still had the will to survive. Sometimes that was what made the difference. Alvin remained impassive. “Elsa, Heather, if you could do with the Gronckles what you did with the other dragons yesterday, that would be great.”

“Not quite,” said Alvin, and Hiccup almost bit his tongue with shock and annoyance together. He turned to face the Outcast leader, his whole body feeling leaden and dulled with hunger and tiredness, and fixed on him eyes that barely wanted to focus. Alvin at least was not smiling. “Oh, they’ll work all right,” he waved to the two men who had accompanied them, “but you’ll be showing my men as well.”

He had said ‘men’ despite the fact that Clenchjaw was one of the people with them, but she did not seem to notice. Hiccup stood his ground, though, one hand curling into a fist. “No,” he said.

Alvin scowled. “You ought to remember where you are, boy.”

Not a boy, not by Berk’s laws, but Hiccup was honestly so used to still being called it that it barely stung. “I remember only too well,” he said. “And I’ve seen your men around these dragons, and these dragons around your men. They can’t handle this.”

There was a long moment, and then Alvin sighed. He strode over to where Clenchjaw had Heather by the arm still, and drew the Gronckle iron knife from his hip. “I did hope I wouldn’t have to do this.” He pointed at Heather with the knife; her eyes widened, and she tried to wrench away from Clenchjaw. Clenchjaw responded by dragging upwards so that Heather was on the tips of her toes, shoulder dragged upwards at an awkward angle.

“Hey!” said Hiccup. “Leave Heather out of this!”

“You don’t get it,” said Alvin. “You see, you,” he nodded, but the knife did not waver, “yer pretty much indispensable. And you’re already missing one foot, it’s not like you can stand to lose much more. Yer dragon, the same. Her,” a nod at Elsa, and Hiccup felt a fresh rush of anger and of fear for her all mixed together, “she ain’t as important as you, but there’s still things I’d be interested in hearing her say. But this one?” The knife moved so close to Heather that it almost touched her shoulder, and she tried to push it away with her free hand; Alvin casually grabbed her wrist and squeezed, until she cried out. “Like any other. Replaceable to me, but I can see you’ve taken a shine to her.”

“I won’t let you hurt her,” Hiccup said. He took one step towards Alvin, only for a hand to wrap around his arm in turn; he wrenched it away, but then his other hand was grabbed and pulled up behind his back, until he thought that his shoulder was going to pop. Pain flashed in his eyes and his breath wheezed from his lungs. “Alvin!” he choked out.

Alvin pulled out Heather’s right arm to its full stretch, despite her struggles and increasingly frantic expression, and pushed back her sleeve to reveal her forearm. He gave Hiccup a pointed look.

“No!”

But there was nothing he could do, not without dislocating his shoulder. Alvin calmly, almost casually, drew the knife along the back of Heather’s arm, leaving a long line of blood in its wake. She cried out, though it sounded more like surprise than pain. At least Gronckle iron had its sharpness in its favour.

“You see?” said Alvin, louder and more forcibly. “I get what I want, and if need be, I take it. I had you teaching her to prove that you had the chops to do it; wasn’t going to be putting my men in danger first. Now that you’ve shown you can, you’re teaching _them_. And if you did ever want to leave, you’d need someone else able to approach the dragons, hmm?”

Hiccup’s heart pounded in his chest; he did not mean to move, but must have done, because another swipe of pain ran down him and he gulped against it. He scrambled to think of what he could say that would keep the dragons as safe as possible, keep the _knowledge_ of them as safe as possible, without jeopardising Heather further. Blood beaded on the wound to her arm, trickled from the end of the cut.

“You,” he said finally, blurting out the word. Alvin did not speak, but cocked his head just slightly. “Not them. _You_. I’ll show you how to greet the dragons, so that they won’t attack you on sight.”

Alvin paused, then released Heather’s cut arm. She snatched it back to her chest, looking at him with fury in her eyes, a look that came uncomfortably close to murderous. The trickles of blood changed direction on her skin. “All right,” said Alvin, sheathing the knife. “You show me, first.”

The meaning of the ‘first’ was still all-too-clear, but Hiccup clung to it. It should buy him time, at least. He did his best to stand still, until his own arm was released and he could slowly, stiffly, bring it down again. Finally daring to look sideways, he could see that the same Outcast had one huge hand wrapped around both of Elsa’s wrists, pinning them behind her. Her face was pale and drawn, and she was shaking; at a guess, Hiccup would say that she was fighting with her magic again.

“No weapons,” said Hiccup. “And no armour, if it’s got spikes.” As he spoke, Alvin’s expression deepened to a frown again, and Hiccup wondered how much time the man actually spent wearing any other expression. “They can see a danger when they see it, and they can smell the blood. If someone came up to you smelling of death, do you think that you’d be inclined to think well of them?”

“I keep my blades clean,” Alvin replied.

“Not to the nose of a dragon!” It felt as if he were talking to a rock, but at least a rock would not be arguing back. “Alvin, you don’t _get it_. You can’t just be thinking about what humans would see or smell or do.”

“Think like a dragon,” said Alvin. There was something derisive about it still, a shade of a patronising tone, but even Hiccup would have to admit that it was _right_.

“Yes,” he said, more quietly.

Alvin looked the closest to reluctant that Hiccup had ever seen, then snarled wordlessly and stalked over towards his chair. He undid his belt as he went, pulling off first the Gronckle iron knife and then other weapons in turn, before taking off his helmet and adding it to the pile of metal. As he shrugged off his armour, Hiccup turned to the Outcast who had been holding him and who still restrained Elsa.

“Now let her go,” he said, coldly. “I’ve made my deal with Alvin. Do you think that we’re going to try to start a fight just because he’s taken some armour off?”

He was no longer surprised, nor particularly offended, when the man looked across to check with Alvin first. Alvin must have noticed the pause, as he looked round, took them in, and then nodded. Elsa was released, and stepped away sharply, rubbing her wrists and glancing over her shoulder to the man who had held her before striding straight over towards Heather. Clenchjaw dragged them both back, and Elsa stopped to glare at them. She dug her nails into the seam where her sleeve met her shoulder, got a hold, and then ripped it open. The whole sleeve came away, and she rolled it inside out in one swift move.

“Let ‘er go,” said Alvin, this time with a nod in Clenchjaw’s direction. He had taken off his scalemail as well, to reveal a sturdy gambeson beneath, and was brushing off his hands.

Clenchjaw released Heather’s arm, half-shoving her forwards, and Heather stumbled into Elsa as she tried to catch her feet. Elsa caught hold of Heather’s arm, and Heather jumped, almost pulled away, until Elsa pressed her wadded-up sleeve to the cut on Heather’s skin. Surprise flashed in Heather’s eyes.

“Hold it there,” said Elsa.

She did not have her magic to seal the wound, not this time, but as Hiccup watched she ripped off her other sleeve and used it to wrap the pad in place, tying it firmly round. Only when she had done so did she look up to Heather’s face, and though Hiccup could not see Elsa’s expression, he could see the shock shading into gratitude in Heather’s eyes.

“There,” said Elsa, more quietly.

“Right,” Alvin said, cutting across them as he stalked over again.

Even without his armour and weapons, he was intimidating, and Hiccup knew that he had been telling the absolute truth when he had indicated to the other Outcast that he was not going to try to fight. Whatever he was going to do, it was not going to be fighting. Not in the way that Alvin was used to, at least. It could not be.

“Let’s get this over with,” Hiccup said. He was not sure whether he was even intending for Alvin to hear it, but the glare which he got given said more than enough. He pushed up his own sleeves with angry movements. “Heather, are you all right to work with the Gronckle the way that you did with the other dragon yesterday? The old one. I’ll show you how to greet them.”

“Them in general?” said Alvin.

Hiccup refused to look round, but took a deep breath. He would not get away without telling Alvin anything, it seemed. “Dragons vary from species to species. Nadders, Gronckles, Nightmares, each of them are best approached in a certain way.”

“And what about when you meet one for the first time?” said Alvin. He loomed up at Hiccup’s side. “The Night Fury, fer example.”

“There are similarities,” said Hiccup. He finally deigned to look at Alvin, although the effect was probably marred by how far up he had to look. It was more effective when his father chose to ignore someone. “I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure them out.”

He let the glare soften as he turned to Heather again, hoping that she would understand that none of his anger was meant for her. She held her right arm across her body, but there didn’t look to be any sign of the bandages slipping.

“It’s all right,” he said.

Heather’s jaw looked tight. “You said they reacted to blood.”

“Dragon blood,” he said, and hoped that it was true. Or at least that the dragons were used enough to people. He was not sure that he would trust a wild Changewing around a bleeding human, but Gronckles were gentle by nature and the two here would have become come to know humans over the days. Hiccup had fed them, repeatedly; they should have realised that not all humans were equally to be avoided. “You’ll be fine. Come on, I’ll introduce you. Elsa?” he waved to the Gronckle in the pen closest to the door. “You’ve got that one?”

Elsa just nodded.

“Clenchjaw, stay with ‘er,” said Alvin. “And watch closely what she does. She knows plenty, as well.”

It would have been a lot easier if Alvin were as easy to mislead as Dagur. It had taken Skullions to break through Dagur’s blindness, and even then it had been almost impossible to even get him to understand what was happening. Alvin saw too much, especially considering how quiet Elsa was about her own knowledge.

“This Gronckle’s older,” said Hiccup, doing his best to lead Heather across without actually touching her. She was not hunched defensively, though; her shoulders were squared and it was anger that he could feel radiating from her skin. “The Nadder, the dragon with the colours, they were quicker-moving, more like birds. She,” he gestured to the Gronckle as they neared the cell, with a glance over his shoulder to see Clenchjaw opening the door to the younger Gronckle’s pen, “will be slower. Might take some coaxing to stand up.”

“She?” said Heather.

He shrugged. “It’s harder to tell with Gronckles than with some. But she doesn’t seem to mind.”

It did not earn him even the faintest twitch of a smile, but he knew that it was a weak joke even for the circumstances. Alvin unlocked the door to the old Gronckle’s pen, and she looked up at them with huge, sad eyes. Then pen at least looked better than it had when Hiccup had first seen it, though that was faint praise at its finest.

“All right,” he said. “Gronckles aren’t worried if you look at them. Same posture, same hand,” he gestured with his palm, a shadow of the hand movement that they used to greet the dragons.

Heather watched the movement of his hands, hesitated, then settled her shoulders. She went to extend her right hand, stopped, and swapped to her left instead; it shook as she stepped up. Hiccup deliberately hung back, both to let Heather be the one to greet the dragon and so that he could keep an eye on Alvin, who was watching everything with a calculating look.

“Talk to her,” said Hiccup. Gronckles were possibly the most trusting species he had come across, but voices still helped.

Another hesitation; he saw Heather swallow, and brace herself for a moment before softening her stance to a less threatening one again. “Hi, girl,” she said. Despite everything, her voice was low, almost musical. That made sense, he supposed. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. Just want to… check you over. Clean you up.”

He was not sure if he imagined the way that her tone changed, sliding to true concern as she edged in, smooth slow movements, and offered the palm of her hand to the Gronckle’s snout. The Gronckle blinked at her once, twice, harrumphed low in her throat in a way that might sound threatening if you didn’t know what it meant. But Heather held her ground, and her breath, until the Gronckle pressed her nose into the waiting palm. Heather gave a relieved sigh so huge that Hiccup could see it from where he stood, and bought her other hand in to stroke the Gronckle’s nose without even thinking.

With a grunt, the Gronckle shifted, getting her front legs under her and pushing half-up again, looking curiously at Heather’s hand. Heather froze, eyes widening, and Hiccup took one step closer as much because of Heather’s clear fear as because of the actual dragon herself. The Gronckle sniffed Heather’s hand, the makeshift dressing and bandage, then snorted as if trying to clear her nose. But she made no move to bite, or lash out.

“All right,” said Heather, voice trembling only slightly. She rubbed the Gronckle’s cheek with her good hand. “Let’s… start with your eyes.”

“Not quite,” said Alvin. “Stand aside, girl.”

Heather’s hand clenched to a fist, just for a moment, and fury contorted her face before she calmed her expression and stepped aside. Barely sparing a glance for her, Alvin walked straight up to the Gronckle, stance confident without being overbearing, and though the Gronckle eyed him warily there was again no sign of attack. She might not have been as comfortable with Alvin, but she allowed him to approach, stand in front of her, and raise his hand to a few inches in front of her snout.

There was a long, heavy pause. Selfishly, or at least half-selfishly, Hiccup hoped that the Gronckle would refuse Alvin, would associate him too much with mistreatment and degradation, but he probably should have known better. Dragons were kinder, better, than humans had ever been; the Gronckle nudged her nose forwards slightly, not completely touching, but allowed Alvin to be the one to finish closing the gap so that his palm rested on her snout.

Alvin chuckled to himself, and Hiccup felt sick. All that he could try to reassure himself with was that the dragon had not been the one to reach all of the way. It had been more a concession than a choice. After only a moment, Alvin stepped back again, looking at his palm, still smiling. It was about the most real smile that Hiccup had ever seen on Alvin’s face, and it was honestly disturbing.

“No magical markings,” said Hiccup. “Maybe some dragon snot. Oh, but you should be aware – it’s flammable.”

Alvin paused, in the process of going to wipe his hand on his gambeson, then wiped it on the Gronckle’s side instead. As the smile faded, it left him looking thoughtful; after a few days, Hiccup hoped that he was getting better at reading Alvin’s expressions. Or so he hoped.

“Right,” Alvin said. “So it does work. Now, let’s test it on a second one.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Nadder with which Hiccup intended to work had much the same reaction as the old Gronckle: A faint sort of acceptance, barely more than capitulation. But Alvin looked pleased with the result on the same, and told Hiccup to get on with his work before leaving the cell. Hiccup had a strong suspicion that he would be going to check the technique on the other dragons. Although perhaps not Toothless, if Alvin valued his hands.

Doing his best to put it out of his head, he set to work on the Nadder again, cleaning out his mouth and trying to encourage him to stand, move around and not let his muscles lock up. The Nadder was not keen on the idea, but Hiccup persevered, and eventually got him moving around.

By the afternoon, or at least by what he thought was afternoon to judge by how tired he felt, he had passed the message along for Elsa and Heather to muck out all of the pens again; it had already been several days for some of the dragons. He suspected that the dragons were as good as they were going to get, and that he would have to move in the next couple of days. Whatever his next move was going to be.

“If you want the Scauldron done in a reasonable time,” he said to Alvin, once he had done what he could for the Nadder, “it will take all three of us. It’s by far the largest dragon, and probably the wildest species.”

And the one with which none of them had any experience, but Hiccup was not going to say that. Alvin’s better mood from the morning evaporated again, and he scowled but did glance down at the Scauldron thoughtfully. Perhaps it was the days of honesty which had bought Hiccup some trust, but Alvin nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “But no talking, unless it’s to me, or essential. Come on.”

True to his word, Hiccup’s only words to Elsa or Heather were to let them know that they would all be working with the Scauldron. Heather looked alarmed, but slowly nodded, and Hiccup supposed that was her trust coming back into play again. At least Scauldron venom, although painful, was not fatal except in unusual circumstances. And the Scauldron in question had seemed to understand that she was being helped.

Alvin insisted on introducing himself to the Scauldron first, and the Scauldron consented to it again. All over again, Hiccup felt as if he were the traitor, letting out too many secrets and too much knowledge all at once, endangering dragons and humans both. When he stepped up in turn, Hiccup made sure to keep his hand back just an inch or so, and let the Scauldron be the one to make the choice. Sure enough, she did.

He went to apologise to the dragon, then caught himself. Better not to risk Alvin’s anger now. He let Elsa and Heather greet the dragon in turn, watching closely enough to see that in both cases, it was the dragon who made the last move to touch. Perhaps there were more in common between the human and dragon captives than Alvin thought.

“I’ll need the muzzle off,” said Hiccup. “So I can check her mouth. Same as the others,” he added, with a wave in the direction of the other dragons.

Alvin paused, grimaced, but nodded. “But I’ll warn yer, that one’s a biter.”

“Well, that could never have been expected,” said Hiccup. Strapped down as it was, the dragon had no other defences, and could only feel as if her neck were stretched out for execution. Hiccup kept the roll of his eyes for once he had looked away from Alvin, and carefully unbuckled the Scauldron’s jaws and neck before he could be stopped from undoing as many buckles as he intended to. The Scauldron raised her head with a hiss, eyes fixing on Alvin, and Hiccup hurriedly made the murmuring, hushing sounds that generally seemed to work.

Sure enough, the Scauldron’s head swayed back down again, still scanning across them all but mostly settling on Hiccup, until she set about sniffing him over.

“Yeah, I know, I probably smell pretty bad,” he muttered. She responded by trying to stick her nose into his armpit, and he guided her face away. “Ahah, no, thank you…” Her tongue scraped across his skin, tacky-dry to the touch, and he grimaced. “Alvin, can we get some more water here? She’s getting by, but…”

“End of the day,” said Alvin. “I ain’t handing out weaponry.”

Hiccup sighed, but let it drop. If he could persuade Alvin to actually start feeding and watering the dragons properly, it would be worth it. At least for now, until he could get the dragons away altogether. “Fine. For now, the same check as before. Can we get her out of the water to check her wings?”

“Thought you didn’t want her getting dried out.”

“I wanted all three of us so that we could get it completed in a few hours,” said Hiccup, although he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being tested. What Berk knew about Scauldrons had come from killing them; over a year of peace, and he had not seen one himself. But it was known that it took several hours, often half a day, in direct sunlight for one to be dried out and killed. Underground, in a pen that was still pretty wet in its own right, they should have more leeway. “Believe it or not,” he borrowed from Gobber’s vocabulary again, “I do know my arse from my elbow.”

At least that seemed to get a flicker of amusement from Heather.

Alvin sighed, but nodded. “Fine. Let’s get this sorted.”

He was surprised at how clean the Scauldron’s water was, as the Outcasts helped them to get the Scauldron out of the water. Hiccup had originally meant to stay by her head and keep her calm, but it was quickly apparent that the Outcasts did not know what they were doing and would hurt her if left to themselves; he called Heather round, rather than risk her doing more damage to her arm, and simply told her to talk to the Scauldron as she would a child. He had neither the time – nor the inclination to push Alvin’s patience – to tell her more, and hurried round to correct the Outcasts on how to hold the dragon’s wings.

It took him a moment, beneath the splashing of water and Clenchjaw swearing in a steady stream that would have impressed just about anyone in Berk, to be sure that he was not hearing things. But no, there really was singing; he looked around in bewilderment to see Heather cradling the Scauldron’s huge head in her hands and singing to it in a distant, distracted sort of way.

“The moon is a-mourning, her lover, her lover,

At the side of the sighing sea;

Now lays she down lonely, the stars bright above her.

Oh, asha-asha, oh, asha-asha ee.

Oh he was a sea-child, a sailor, a sailor,

Over the waves would roam.

But death’s claws have claimed him, and her eyes they fail her.

Oh, asha-asha, oh, asha-asha oh.”

Good voice, Hiccup had to say. Maybe that came with being the daughter of a skald, as well. In any case, it seemed to calm the Scauldron enough for them to get her out of the water, and Hiccup quickly took control of the head again, to check the eyes and mouth and generally handle the most dangerous part.

It was as he was checking the Scauldron’s ears that he realised that her pool must be part of the sea itself, with a free flow of water that kept it clean and cool. Probably by chance or laziness, the Outcasts had ensured that the Scauldron was the best cared-for of them all.

Checking over confirmed that her health was good, save for a few scratches and damaged scales from where she had banged against rocks beneath the water level. Certainly nothing that some rest would not take care of. He was happy enough to call an end to work, and get the Scauldron back into the water, before Alvin called it a day.

His knees ached. His clothes were damp and clammy with seawater and sweat, and even his eyes were hurting with tiredness and everything that had happened in the previous few days. Telling himself that this day, at least, was nearly over, that there might even be a hint of sunlight left in the sky by the time that he returned to his cell.

“We’re done,” he said to Alvin, with a wave towards Heather and Elsa. “I can stay and see them fed.”

Alvin nodded to his followers; Clenchjaw went to grab Heather by the arm but she snatched away with the sort of sharpness that Hiccup had not been able to manage for hours. Clenchjaw scowled, visibly despite the burn-scars on her face, but just gave Heather a shove to the shoulder towards the door.

As she passed, Hiccup made sure to step up to her and pat her on the biceps of her good arm. “Thank you,” he said quietly. All over again, she looked surprised. When Elsa followed, Hiccup could not help himself, and stepped in to hug her just for a moment. She felt as damp and dirty as him, although cooler, and put her arms around him to hug back briefly before drawing away again and following Heather without a word.

They left, and Hiccup wiped sweat from his forehead and wondered whether it was worth showing the goodwill to strap the Scauldron’s head back down again for the short while it would take for food to arrive. He decided against it, and to feed the Scauldron first.

“Well, I could see how someone could believe that you two were a couple,” said Alvin, dragging Hiccup from his thoughts again.

Of course; Elsa had been in his house the night that the Outcasts had kidnapped them both. “It’s called friendship, Alvin. You should give it a try some time.”

Alvin snorted. “Always the wit. I’ll have me men bring in the food for them.”

“And more water for the Scauldron. Fresh would be better for her,” said Hiccup. He wasn’t actually entirely sure about the freshwater when it came to them, but Thornado certainly appreciated it, and Thunderdrums were just as much Tidal Class as were Scauldrons. In any case, Alvin seemed to believe it, and was already barking orders as he strode back down the corridor once again.

Once Alvin was at the far end, Hiccup took a risk, and slipped back along to Toothless’s pen. He was not going to incur Alvin’s wrath by going in, but stepped up to the door, and the curl of shadow at the rear of the pen opened its eyes and looked at him through the gloom.

“I’m sorry, bud,” he breathed.

Toothless blinked, slow and trusting, and Hiccup rested his forehead against the bars. He needed to find out where Toothless’s tail was; though it would probably be feasible for the Nightmare or even the younger Gronckle to carry Toothless if they did not have time for the saddle, leaving the tail behind on Outcast Island was simply not an option. Hiccup would rather burn it than let Alvin know that much.

He looked round to see Alvin standing only a couple of yards away, watching with his face unreadable again. Too tired to be angry, Hiccup straightened up, and held out a hand for the bucket of fish that Alvin was carrying.

“You think he’ll actually eat today?” said Alvin.

It wasn’t concern, not from him, and Hiccup paused suspiciously even as the weight of the bucket hit his hand. Alvin did not say anything more, though, and Hiccup simply waited for the door to be unlocked so that he could enter, walking straight over to Toothless and setting the bucket down before dropping to his knee and reaching for the muzzle.

Toothless sniffed at the bucket, then jerked his head back with a snort. He shook his head until his flaps clattered together, and got to his feet just to back away.

“Woah, woah, Toothless!” Hiccup stood up again and followed him carefully, arms outstretched. “Come on, Toothless, what is it?”

Toothless sneezed. He turned his head away, but the bag was still over his snout, and the fire flashed within it like a trapped sun. Yelping, Toothless started trying to paw the bag off his nose, making pained sounds so deep that they were barely audible. Hiccup’s heart leapt into his throat. For one panicked moment he wondered if, somehow, eels were to blame again – but no, Toothless had not eaten for days now. The air was too humid for it to be dust, and within the confines of the bag it should not have happened anyway.

“Toothless! Come on, come on!” he scrambled over on his hands and knees, wrenched the bag off, and undid the buckles on the straps. Toothless gave an almost-growl, but his teeth were fully retracted, and the bright red of his gums told exactly why.

At least there was no sign of a sneeze coming again.

There was only one thing that had been introduced at just the right moment. Hiccup rose to his feet, feeling anger well up through him like a spring and reawaken muscles that had been fading into exhaustion. He snatched up the bucket, stormed back out, and threw it down at Alvin’s feet, sending fish and bits of fish scattering across the stone floor.

“What was in that?” he demanded.

Alvin looked down, and lifted his boot to shake off a half-gutted fish. Of course, he didn’t actually deign to give a response.

Shaking, Hiccup jabbed a finger in Alvin’s direction. “You put something in the food to cause that.” The smell of eels would not be enough; it had to be something else. “What was it?” Still nothing. “What was it, Alvin?”

“If you’re such an expert, why don’t you tell me?” said Alvin, a glint in his eye.

For a moment, the anger was almost as bad as it had been when the strange dragon had been pouring it into his head. The world narrowed until all that he could see was Alvin, and there was a tension beneath his skin, a desire to attack Alvin even if it was stupid and would accomplish nothing. Like an itch in the palms of his hands.

It was on the tip of Hiccup’s tongue to retort that he had done as Alvin had asked, that he had told Alvin how to get the dragons clean and healthy again, and even shown him how to introduce himself to them. But again, he knew a test when he heard it, even if the anger was heat in his veins and, for far from the first time in his life, he knew that if he had more ability to fight then he would have started a fight then. Not that long ago, he might have tried to start one anyway.

There were plenty of ways to test him without endangering Toothless like that. Not fireproof on the inside; if Toothless had not been able to retract his teeth, and the blast had been unable to leave his mouth at all…

He had to put the thought aside. “Alvin, you have _no right_ to do this to him. What, you’re going to poison anyone who doesn’t do what you want? Or maybe,” another jab of the finger, “maybe this is _why_ he hasn’t been eating.” The twitch under Alvin’s eye told him that he was right on that count, at least. “Did it not occur to you that he’d try to avoid getting poisoned? Or did you not even realise what you were doing?”

“All I’m _realising_ ,” said Alvin, “is that you don’t know what it is.”

He didn’t, that was the worst part. He wasn’t pretending not to know, or trying to keep something back from Alvin; he plain did not know what it was that could make the dragons react like this. Stooping, Hiccup picked up one of the fish again; it was oily under his hands, more than might have been expected from fish that had been largely prepared, and he weighed it for a moment before bringing his fingers to his face to sniff them. Layered over the smell of the fish was something else, sweet and almost rose-like, which he did not recognise in the slightest. What sort of oil could there be that could do this to a dragon?

It came to him in a blink, bubbling up from the depths of his memory, and he set his eyes squarely on Alvin. “Blue oleander oil,” he said. He had no idea what blue oleander even was, but Johann had said that Alvin had been at great pains to acquire its oil, and that told Hiccup more than enough.

For a moment, Alvin looked impressed, before hurriedly folding it away and rubbing his chin, letting his gaze cool and become more calculated again. “Not bad,” he said, finally. “If he’d’ve eaten it, I’d’ve had you getting the venom from the Scauldron. S’posed to be the remedy – heard that from Berk’s blacksmith, back in the day. Course, everyone knows he speaks half yak dung in those dragon stories;” doubtless, again, he knew how the words needled beneath Hiccup’s skin, refusing to even name Gobber and then speaking of him so dismissively; “but I was hoping for your sake it’d turn out true.”

“Clean fish for the Night Fury,” said Hiccup. “Or this ends now. And I need my saddlebags; there’s some herbs among them that should help.”

“Not more of your onions?”

“The onions were to clean the wound; I didn’t carry anything like that with me. But I have herbs for burns. Take me to them, and I’ll tell you what I carry them for.”

It was almost all bluster and bravado, he knew that. He still did not really have any power to be demanding anything of Alvin, not when Alvin had control over all of them and had proven himself willing to do what it took to keep them in line.

“And what?” said Alvin. “Show you where all your things are stored? D’you think I’ve turned a fool in the last few hours?”

“Then bring the saddlebags to me,” Hiccup snapped. Although finding out where his things were would be ideal, he really was more worried about Toothless. “I’ve got other things in there apart from herbs, and not all of those herbs are for him. Unless you want whoever is doing this to walk back and forth several times, I’d suggest bringing them all at once.”

Apparently, it was enough for Alvin to give in, at least on this. He growled to himself for a moment, then sighed. “Fine. I’ll fetch them. You wait at the far end with Clenchjaw, I hear her coming now.”

“Oh, yes, just who I want to spend my evening with.”

“She ain’t fond of you neither.”

Well, there was a mystery for the ages. Hiccup went to look at Toothless, then realised that if he did, he would draw attention to the muzzle still hanging loose. Two dragons unmuzzled, and Alvin had not said a word. Rather than acknowledge it, Hiccup clenched his jaw and followed Alvin back to the head of the line of cells, and waited for at least some of his things to be, at least temporarily, returned to him.


	17. Chapter 17

Alvin stormed into the cells before dawn. With barely a word, he dragged Hiccup – and only Hiccup – out of his cell, and when they turned away from the dragons, towards the rest of the Outcast settlement; Hiccup would admit to feeling afraid. Alvin might have called him indispensable just the previous day, but he was not particularly feeling it, especially as he was hauled out into the cold, spitting-with-rain pre-dawn and marched across the jagged surface of the island. It was black and volcanic under his feet, and he had to watch his steps, certain that if he fell he would cut himself to ribbons.

He did not dare to speak as Alvin pushed him onwards, and could only cling to the fact that it was only Alvin with him. No other Outcasts, and even Alvin was no more heavily armed than usual. Knives, not an axe. It would still be easy enough to execute him out here, Hiccup knew that, but he could hope that was not what Alvin had in planned.

“Here,” spat Alvin, grabbing Hiccup’s shoulder as they reached the top of another rocky ridge. Hiccup found himself looking into a deep hole in the ground, a ragged crater that seemed to punch down to a tunnel beneath. “Explain it.”

For a moment, Hiccup had to opt for looking at it in bewilderment. The rock was glassy-smooth, and the shape of it meant that it could not be any sort of rockfall. It was the wrong sort of rock for collapsing sinkholes, like they had on Berk.

Then he heard the soft grunt of a Monstrous Nightmare, not far below them, and realisation dawned.

Hiccup started laughing. It might have been shaky, edged with hysteria, but suddenly the whole situation was so absurd that he could not help it. His legs wobbled beneath him, and he reined himself in only for another whoop to burst out, while Alvin’s eyes grew narrower and his face grew ruddier with fury.

“You,” Hiccup finally managed. “You have no _idea_ what you’re dealing with, do you?” He forced himself to sober up, and settled for shaking his head in disbelief. “What, do you think that I somehow did this in my sleep?” He waved at the crater. “I’m flattered, Alvin, I really am, but my skills with dragons don’t stretch this far.”

A growl stretched out from Alvin’s lips. “I don’t hear an explanation, Hiccup.”

“The dragons don’t need human direction to do something like this,” Hiccup said. On Berk, spelling it out might have been a form of pity, but he was a long way from pitying Alvin. “I told you that Nadder fire would be hot enough to burn through rock. I just meant to make the airhole from the inside.”

He could almost see the thoughts falling into place. First, the idea that the wild dragons would be creating an airhole for the ones beneath, quickly thrown aside as preposterous. The question of how they would know where to fire. The inevitable conclusion that it was not an airhole, but an escape – and the questions still remaining.

All that Hiccup could wonder was whether Alvin would take the final step, whether he would realise that the attacks on the island had been going on for around two moons now, and what had changed on the island just that length of time ago. What unknown was causing this. His eyes scanned Alvin’s face, waiting for the dawning understanding that Hiccup had slowly pieced together in his cell at night and in those of the dragons by day, but either Alvin truly could not see it or he was just too far gone in anger to even be looking.

“I’ll be having my men cover it tonight,” said Alvin. “Catapults and crossbows. So you tell me, are they likely to strike here again, or hit elsewhere?”

It was a behaviour that Hiccup had never seen before, and he had no idea _what_ the dragons were likely to do next. The thought was actually quite heartening, or at least Alvin’s clear discontent was.

“They’re acting in new ways because you’re acting in new ways, Alvin,” he said instead. If he knew the _why_ , he could at least lean on that and control the conversation. “And they’ll modify their behaviour if you modify yours.”

It was true, entirely true, and yet no answer at all. Filthy and hungry and tired, Hiccup nevertheless felt a floating sort of elation, like the first sunlight peeking through the clouds after a terrible storm. Not quite warm, not yet, but at least with the promise of potential. “So tell me this, Alvin: are you just going to set out a few catapults and hope, or are you going to let me teach you more about the dragons you’ve got down below?”

 

 

 

 

 

Again, he had to talk Alvin into letting him even start with the old Gronckle. He did feel it was a little unfair, in some ways; Gronckles were strong, tough, their lava hot enough to eat through almost anything that Vikings could throw at them. They had been less often killed in raids than Nadders or Zipplebacks, just because their hide was so hard to breach. They might have been slow, but so were glaciers, and there was nothing in the world that could stand in the way of one of those.

But they were gentle, almost docile sometimes, and the old one in particular did not seem inclined to do much. She had perked up a little on her combination of fish, bones and rocks, but Hiccup would not blame her for just wanting a quiet place to sleep most of the day away. It was a lot easier to get Alvin to take off all of her restraints than it would be to negotiate Toothless’s freedom to move, and even then they had to wait while a heavy metal net was thrown over the hole in the roof of the tunnel.

“All right,” said Hiccup, as he put aside the last leather strap. The Gronckle looked at her own body as if in surprise. “Come on, girl. Let’s get you to your feet.”

He pushed himself back to standing again, knee and stump vying to complain the most, and stepped back in front of her. When he offered the palm of his hand, she almost shoved her nose against it, snorting her gratitude; as he took a step back, she got to her own feet to follow him.

“Heather?” he called without looking round, waving with his free hand for her to come over. There was movement behind him, but he did not break his eye contact with the Gronckle, and it was only when a rather larger figure loomed at his side that he realised Alvin had intervened.

“No’ this time.” Alvin had removed his weapons and metal armour again, but might as well have still been made of iron as he barged Hiccup aside and put his hand in front of the Gronckle instead.

She looked over at Hiccup, uncertainly, and he knew that if he had offered his hand and made the slightest of sounds she probably would have trotted after him anyway. Alvin might have been present for feeding and washing by now, but it was Hiccup – with Elsa and Heather – who had actually been linked to good things for her. Narrowly resisting, he balled his fists gently, just wrapping his fingers away. Her snout swung back to Alvin’s hand, and she sniffed half-heartedly before taking a step towards him.

“All right,” said Hiccup. It wasn’t enough to stop him from hating himself for teaching Alvin how to do this. “Now back up, slowly, and see if she follows you.”

Alvin was genuinely smiling, and if Hiccup were honest it was a pretty frightening sight in and of itself. His eyes fixed on the Gronckle’s, and he backed up pace by pace with steps so small they were almost ludicrous for a large man and an even larger dragon. But she padded after him, until finally they were standing in the circle of dripping rain and weak sunlight.

Three of the Outcasts had apparently been chosen to accompany Alvin today. The man with the huge moustache and weak chin was the one that Hiccup recognised as being called Savage, who had been running errands for most of the time that they had been there. Hiccup had written him off as little more than a messenger, but Alvin did not speak down to him as he had to some of the others. Perhaps trusted to watch the island in Alvin’s absence, then.

Clenchjaw stood beside him, arms folded with the scarred one upper, almost a challenge in itself. She had not been happy about shedding her armour, and glared as much as watched as Hiccup went about his work. Beside her, Glum stood quieter and less dangerous-looking, fidgeting with his belt and leather jerkin. He had not been as heavily armed as the others, but still seemed to have shrunk most with the removal of his armour.

It was still not as many Outcasts as there were dragons, but Alvin did not seem to want to match dragons to riders individually. At least if his own desire to try his hand – quite literally – at greeting all of them was anything to go by. Hiccup suspected that he wanted this group to be his core when it came to dragons, and would work from there only if he needed to.

Then again, he supposed that Alvin had not said anything about _riding_ dragons, either. Perhaps that was something to be grateful for.

“What now, then?” said Alvin, still standing with his hand at the Gronckle’s nose in the centre of the light.

Hiccup shrugged. “That depends what you want, Alvin. If you want to train them to do anything, you need to decide on it, and then you take it step by step.”

He seemed to consider it. “What about firing? How’d you get that from them?”

That, Hiccup knew immediately, was a story that he would not tell. It was too personal, sitting on the shore of the cove and flicking pebbles into the air, seeing Elsa willingly use her powers for one of the first times, until Toothless caught on and started to play along as well. His chest tightened, and he sought for something else to say instead, when Alvin mercifully continued without looking round.

“Your one fired on command. The words. They understand ‘em?”

“They’re smart, Alvin,” he said again, a little more wearily. The words were growing so familiar now. “Yes, they understand the words. Their names, for example.”

Alvin laughed; after a beat, Savage laughed along as well, while Clenchjaw looked on stonily and Glum snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” said Alvin, “I heard your name for him. S’pose it helps to tell them apart, if you’ve got a lot of ‘em. We’ll worry about that later.”

Hiccup shook his head minutely. Some of it might have been sinking in, but clearly not all of it. He did not say anything aloud, but watched as Alvin panned his hand from side to side, with the Gronckle following it as he did so.

“All right, so this is your first stage,” Alvin continued. “It work on the other ones, as well?”

“Different species are different, and dragons are individuals,” said Hiccup, shrugging, “but the principle doesn’t vary. Get their trust and treat them well. With her,” he nodded to the Gronckle, “you probably won’t have to chain her again. Leave the door closed for now, if you’re worried, but if you give me some fish and lead her back into the pen, she’ll probably go back easily enough.”

The next test, he told himself. He had to find out what he _could_ do next before he could work out what he _should_ do. He wasn’t really surprised when Alvin shook his head.

“No chance. I want them to greet ‘er first. C’mere, Savage, let’s see if you’ve picked it up.”

He lowered his hand and stepped back, the Gronckle glancing around herself again almost casually. It had to make a nice change from the cell. Savage gave Alvin a look of barely-restrained terror, then shuffled towards the Gronckle with his hand outstretched, palm down and fingers crabbed over. Sighing, Hiccup shook his head.

The Gronckle’s eyes narrowed, she bent at the knees, and a low rough growl left her throat. With a yelp, Savage scrambled back again, bumping into Clenchjaw as he did so. With a roll of her eyes, she elbowed him upright.

“No, no, no,” groused Alvin. “Palm towards the dragon, and try to quit looking like you’re gonna soil yourself.” He waved to Heather. “Girl who’d never seen dragons had more balls than that first time she met one.”

Unfortunately, it was much the same sort of advice that Hiccup would have given, although he would have kept it less crude and kept his comparisons to Heather to himself. With a look around the room like he was scanning for an exit, Savage did his best to pull himself together, and approached the dragon again with the same slightly hunched-over shuffle but, at least, a flatter and more upright hand.

“Nice Gronckle,” he said, drawing out the words. “Who’s a good dragon? You ain’t gonna eat…”

Savage trailed off as the Gronckle stumped around on the spot until she was facing away from him. There was just enough time for him to frown, and open his mouth to speak, before she lifted her tail and let rip an impressive fart in his direction. It ruffled his moustache, and he turned pale as it seemed to sink in.

Behind him, Alvin groaned and looked at the ceiling, muttering something about Odin. Clenchjaw sniggered.

“At least it didn’t bite you,” offered Glum. Savage did not look particularly relieved by that.

“Oh, let me try.” Clenchjaw strode forwards, actually confident, and round until she stood in front of the Gronckle. She looked it in the eye. “Maybe she ain’t a fan of streaks of piss.”

Raising a hand, she walked around into the Gronckle’s line of sight again; the Gronckle tilted her head, ear-flaps twitching, but did not look ready to growl or to break wind again. Another step, then a third, and Clenchjaw’s hand came to within a few inches, close enough for the Gronckle to start to sniff.

“That it?” she said, with a look to Alvin. For once, Hiccup would take the feeling of invisibility.

Alvin shook his head. “No. Hand should be touching her, if she’ll let yer.”

“She. Huh,” said Clenchjaw. She looked at the old Gronckle again. “Well, she ain’t been a biter so far.”

She stepped closer, then slowly rocked her weight forwards, closing the gap from her hand to the Gronckle’s snout by fractions. The Gronckle looked uncertain, lifting her lips for a moment to reveal her teeth, but did not snap or pull away and, finally, Clenchjaw’s hand came to rest against her snout.

Hiccup had to look away. Alvin was bad enough; now it had been proved that he could teach his people to approach the dragons as well. Even taking these dragons would not be enough; Alvin would just find others to replace them. The cells would have to go, he decided abruptly, the ceiling melted and shattered so that these would never be contained again. If Alvin wanted the dragons solely to fight, and did not care enough to even name them, surely that would not be enough to buy a dragon’s loyalty.

Surely.

He hoped.

But Alvin watched, still smiling, as Clenchjaw too experimented with leading the Gronckle from side to side, back and forth, a few paces in any direction. Hiccup watched Alvin instead. The dragons were primed, ready to leave at any moment. They were healthy enough to get into the air and make it to Berk – even the one wheezing as he breathed was as strong as he was going to get without proper treatment from Gobber or Gothi. The difficulty was going to be getting to their things, to take with them.

Alvin had been the one to retrieve the herbs the previous day, and there was only one key on his belt. Hiccup was going to have to bet that meant that his saddlebags, and hopefully everything else, were in Alvin’s chambers. If he could get them, they could all get out.

He took a deep breath, and walked over, angling himself so that he was close to Savage and Glum but could look past them to Elsa and Heather. Elsa noticed his gaze first, and touched Heather’s arm gently, nodding in Hiccup’s direction. When Heather looked round, Hiccup made sure to catch her eyes for a moment.

“With what we’re doing today,” he said, “I need you to trust me, and to do _exactly_ what I say.”

Savage and Glum looked unimpressed, but nodded vaguely. Beyond them, he saw Elsa and Heather nod with more seriousness, and felt his heart pounding in his chest. Four days had already been four days too long. He needed this to be over.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup dawdled, working as slowly as he could as he showed Glum and Savage in turn how to actually approach and offer their hands to the dragons. It was still not ideal; taking time on the lesson meant that he knew they really were learning it, that this was not something that was ever going to escape them. But if he could keep it to approaching, to that first touch, then perhaps it would save some dragon lives by turning attacks into greetings. Without cells or a deliberate plan to train the dragons, he hoped that Alvin would not have the direction to do more. At least until Hiccup could talk to his father, and potentially look at dealing more completely with Outcast Island.

After the old Gronckle, he insisted that they test themselves with another dragon. Alvin waved aside the thought of using the other Gronckle, saying that the same species was no real challenge, but allowed Hiccup to bring out the second, healthier, Nadder for them to try. They proved a lot more difficult, and ate up the time, snapping their defiance at Alvin and lashing their tail with spines extended. Alvin did not ask for further assistance, mulling until he remembered the blindspot and physically set Savage into it.

“They’re learning,” said Hiccup, as Savage hesitantly raised a hand to the Nadder. Even if she did not put her nose to it, she tolerated the hand being nearby. It was not hard for Hiccup to put the right begrudging tone to the words.

Alvin grunted. “Faster than Berk?”

“Yes.” It was only half a lie. His friends had been faster, when they were not quite yet his friends, but the adults had taken more time to come around. They had not _wanted_ to, at first.

“The offer still stands,” said Alvin. “I reckon you could learn here.”

“Maybe I could,” said Hiccup, more quietly. “But after what you’ve done, Alvin…”

“What I ‘ad to. First thing you can learn. Not all of us are chief’s sons on islands that have good enough soil for crops.”

“You used to live on Berk as well.”

“Aye, when the attacks were at their worst. Yer father tell you about it?” He did not give Hiccup a chance to reply. “ _All_ about it? The number that died, or lost ‘ands or feet? The mothers that saw that their houses burn down with children still in the cradles inside? Yer uncle, ripped apart by that Exterminator? He were only your age.”

“It was the work of the Red Death, Alvin. The attacks have stopped now.” He did not want the conversation, not at all, but perhaps it would be a way to get the information he needed out of Alvin so that they could get out of here. And perhaps he could learn something else along the way. “And just because my father wasn’t born the heir, that doesn’t give you the right to try to seize Berk.”

Alvin scoffed. “You think that was it?”

“I know the deal you had with Weselton,” said Hiccup, glaring across at him. “You let him into Berk, and you would have been chief.”

“And do you know what Weselton was offering?” Alvin turned to face him, and Hiccup turned as well in the hope that it would make Alvin feel less overbearing. It was not particularly successful. “Hmm? Weapons. Ships. The supplies we needed to really take the fight to the dragons. Maybe we’d have even found that beast of yours, twenty years earlier.”

“Then you would have died.”

“At least I would’ve died _doing_ something,” Alvin snarled, “and not just sitting on Berk trying to swat away dragons with sticks. You’ve got some idea in your head that I sold your father out for the chief’s cloak. And true, being chief might have appealed,” he said, “but I’d’ve let your father stay chief if he would have listened to Weselton.”

“Bowed to Weselton,” said Hiccup.

It was all that he could manage, though; he had not heard this part before. All that was said on Berk was that Alvin had made a deal with Weselton that would have made him chief but answering to the foreign kingdom. There had not been much need for an explanation as to _why_.

“I’d rather’ve lived beneath Weselton than be burned alive free.”

Hiccup shook his head. “You think Weselton meant what he offered? If they’d wanted a deal, they should have asked for trade. Weselton wants land on the same island as Arendelle, always has.” That much of southern politics, he did know. And Weselton was a land with Silver Priests as well. “And they wouldn’t have been _gifts_.” You didn’t have to be a genius to work that much out. “They would have been _leverage_.”

“Well, now we’ll never know,” Alvin said. “But think about it. You ever wonder why they didn’t tell you that part?”

Because it was just excuses for old actions. Hiccup held his tongue, though, hoping that it would let Alvin think he was having some doubts. With what might have been a chuckle, Alvin shook his head, and looked back to where the Nadder was sniffing Savage over.

“Aye,” he said. “Thought as much.”

Hiccup let the words stretch out in the air between them, like a water droplet gathering weight and preparing to fall. “What do you want to do?” he said, finally. “With the dragons. Are you looking to attack Berk? You don’t want to stay on this island, do you?”

“No,” said Alvin, words tight. “We don’t. No wood, no hunting, no good ground. This ain’t a place to live.”

“So, what?” said Hiccup. He was careful to keep his words non-combative, and even let them shake slightly. Hopefully Alvin would misread the fear, not realise that it was about edging out along the careful ledge of the conversation. “Do you want Berk?”

“It ain’t about Berk. It’s about land,” said Alvin. He shook his head, heaving a sigh. “They’ve built me up like some power-hungry southern tyrant, huh?” He shot a knowing glance in Hiccup’s direction, while Hiccup schooled his face calm. “No. Me, I’m just a survivor.”

“The hólmganga,” Hiccup muttered, not even particularly meaning for it to be aloud.

To his surprise, Alvin actually seemed to hesitate. “So they tell that story as well.”

Hiccup shook his head. “No. Stoick only told me this summer.”

“Over Mildew.”

His stomach twisted. “Yes,” he said, not sure what else he even could say.

Alvin huffed. “He sent us a smoke signal, let us know he needed out of Berk. Made contact with ‘im some moons before that, actually, and he told us plenty about Berk.” Another sideways glance. “At least I had the nerve to fight when I made meself a traitor.”

To be fair, he had a point. Mildew’s betrayal had been far more cowardly, and far more petty, over peace with half a dozen dragons rather than war with a thousand. Again, though, Hiccup refused to let it show on his face. “And you told him that you’d be without dragons?”

“Oh, no. He made that assumption all by himself.”

And such a wrong assumption. Hiccup snorted, before he could even help himself, imagining the fury that must have consumed Mildew when he realised that his betrayal, that leaving Berk, that risking his life, had all been for nothing. It was a petty, bitter sort of amusement though, and slid like worms through him, leaving him feel all the more disgusted with himself.

“You’ve got three other species of dragon,” said Hiccup aloud. He fixed his eyes back on the Nadder. Heather and Elsa had been left largely to their own devices, and were standing back against the wall of the tunnel, some paces away from the Outcasts. Elsa said something to Heather, quietly and with barely a tilt of her head to give her away, and Hiccup saw Heather half-smile as she replied. “The Nightmare, the Scauldron or the other one.”

“What of the Night Fury?”

Hiccup shook his head. “He won’t listen to you, Alvin. He is mine.” _And I am his._

“Not even yer friend?”

Hand clenching more tightly into a fist, Hiccup looked back to Alvin again. He understood it, on one level; of course he did. The thought of having a Night Fury, the fastest and most powerful of the dragons, to be one of _yours_ had to be an enticing one. But Hiccup knew that Toothless was more, that he was beautiful and smart and loyal, and that he was the one to show them what dragons could really be. “They aren’t like swords, Alvin. You can’t just put them in someone else’s hand.”

Even a sword, passed from hand to hand, was not quite the same; any blacksmith knew that. The fit of the hilt, the balance of the weight in the wielder’s hand, so many things that mattered for the making of a truly good weapon. But dragons were like shieldbrothers, and irreplaceable.

“But he will answer to her,” Alvin pushed.

His head hurt. He could not remember whether Alvin had seen Toothless responding to Elsa’s commands, the previous year; perhaps it did not matter, when he had Mildew’s memory to mine for all that time more. There was a good chance that Mildew would know that Toothless would respond to Elsa as well, and probably even that Astrid and Stoick had also managed to successfully fly the Night Fury.

“He chooses his friends,” said Hiccup. “His allies. And you aren’t going to be able to undo that choice, Alvin.”

“And dragons hold grudges to their deaths, so I’ve ‘eard,” said Alvin.

“That’s the traditional wisdom,” Hiccup said. He saw the sidelong glance that Alvin gave him, but did not say aloud that the traditional wisdom seemed to be wrong. He already felt as if he had said far, far too much.

 

 

 

 

 

They dealt with the Monstrous Nightmare next, although he snapped and huffed and generally acted irritably throughout the whole thing. More than once, Alvin growled faintly, frustration apparent, but never said anything aloud and never raised a hand towards the dragons. It was, again, worryingly good. It must have been late afternoon by the time that they moved on to the dragon whose species Hiccup did not know. He was halfway through undoing her shackles when he heard her crooning, and looked up to see faint ripples in the colours of her skin.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” he said, stroking her flank gently. She craned her neck, peering towards the hole in the rock above them. “It’s all right. I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

Her croon became more insistent. It buzzed in his ears, like ringing after the loudest of dragon roars, and for a moment his eyesight wavered. He thought that he could hear someone speaking, but could not make out words, just a distant buzzing noise as his hands faltered, resting on her skin. When he breathed in, for a moment it tasted like clean air, and he dropped from a crouch to his knees as the world wavered.

It only broke when a dragon roared, above and behind him. He lurched around, having to catch himself with one hand, and caught sight of a flash of wing in the clear sky visible above them.

Alvin was shouting something. A hand wrapped around Hiccup’s arm, and he was dragged from the cell, struggling to get to his feet and tearing open the scabs on his knees again. The door to the pen was slammed closed, just as the Monstrous Nightmare roared, sound muted by the muzzle that Hiccup had needed to put back around his snout.

“Get them back to the cells!”

Hiccup managed to make out Alvin’s words through a haze as he was hauled along the length of the pens again. The Outcasts had grabbed weapons, and Alvin had pulled his scalemail back on and was quickly fastening his belt again.

“Now!”

“Hiccup?” said Heather. Her voice sounded as if it was coming from underwater. He blinked at her, unable to speak, and looked at Elsa to see that she had gone so pale she looked almost grey, her shoulders trembling like she was fighting the urge to curl over on herself.

“Get moving,” Clenchjaw snarled, pointing her axe at them. There was a snarl from The Gronckle in the pen opposite, the only dragon that could still see them. Her eyes were fixed on the blade. “Back to the cells. Move it!”

“Savage,” Alvin snapped. “Get to the north defences, get ‘em moving.”

“They don’t attack by day!” The panic was clear in Savage’s voice.

“Well, now they are. Go!” Alvin all but threw Savage – still with his own scalemail bundled in his arms – into the tunnel ahead of him, then stormed after him. His voice receded, ringing on the stone walls. “And I want that crater covered. Good reason t’think they’ll go back to it.”

It had to be Glum that was pulling him around, Hiccup realised belatedly, and looked up to confirm it. Glum had gone pale behind his red-brown beard, and his eyes flickered as he continued towards the door without pause. “Come on,” said Glum. “Let’s get ‘em back.”

“Hey!” Heather protested, as Glum and Hiccup entered the tunnel. Perhaps a shove, or a gesture of the sword. He tried to look over his shoulder, but could not with how quickly he was being pulled. It was difficult enough not to stumble on the bare rock ground. The sounds of dragons were dulled by the rock roof, but he could still hear them, even over his own pounding heart.

Heather had never said anything about attacks during the day, either. This had to be the first in, at least, the time that she had been here.

As they reached the cells again, the guard standing outside looked around, clearly spooked, and fumbled to get the keys from his belt. Clenchjaw snatched them from him with her right hand.

“Go get to the defences,” she said. “I’ve got them.”

He hurried away, hand already going to the handle of his axe. Clenchjaw opened the door and waved with her sword for both Heather and Elsa to enter. Glum steered Hiccup after them, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Glum looked round.

“Go get your damn weapons,” she said. She gestured with her own sword. “Alvin stopped her. I can handle them.”

The magic; presumably the Outcasts, or Clenchjaw at least, thought that they were defenceless without Toothless or Elsa’s magic. Or weapons, Hiccup supposed. He could understand why it might look that way. But Hiccup’s eyes drifted to Clenchjaw’s shoulder where her gambeson, without the scalemail over it, did not have the mirror that had been there before.

He allowed himself to be herded towards the cells, Clenchjaw closing the door behind them and marching them straight into the centre of the room. “Back to your cells,” she said. “You’ll be out when Alvin next wants you.”

“All right, all right,” said Hiccup quickly. “But you should probably know, before you do…”

He waited for her to turn and face him. From behind her, Elsa caught his eye, and nodded.

“I’m not that easy to handle.”

The Outcasts had panicked. That was the only explanation for the fact that none of them had taken from his hand the leather strap that had been used to hold the strange dragon's muzzle closed. It was almost as long as Hiccup was tall, and it had still been folded up in his hand as he had knelt down to release her feet.

It snapped out like an improvised whip, vaguely in the direction of Clenchjaw’s face. It missed, but she flinched, and that was all that was needed for Elsa to grab the broom that leant against the wall, that had been just beyond their reach for so many days, and jab the end viciously into the back of Clenchjaw’s knee. It buckled, and Clenchjaw shouted as she fell to one knee. It was cut off when Hiccup stepped in and punched her square in the nose.

It probably hurt his hand as much as it hurt her face, but it did stop her shouting. The sword moved, and Hiccup was about ready to throw himself aside when he realised that it was in Heather’s hands, pointed straight at Clenchjaw. Heather had fury in her eyes, and both hands on the hilt of the sword.

“Now, I’d suggest not shouting again,” said Hiccup. He was more out of breath than he really felt like he had the right to. The leather strap was still in his right hand, and he stepped behind Clenchjaw, using it to quickly bind her hands together. “You’re going to tell us where Alvin’s quarters are. And I know that they’re close; I know how long it takes him to get there and back from the dragon cells. So you are going to take us there, or we’re going to start getting desperate. And if you think we’re bad now,” he stepped back round in front of her again, “or back on Dragon Island? You really won’t like us when we’re desperate. You got it?”

A muscle twitched in Clenchjaw’s temple, and Heather angled the sword a little closer. Truth be told, Hiccup did not intend to hurt anybody, at least not beyond bruises, scrapes or sore egos. But if letting the Outcasts think otherwise was the only way to get them out of here, then he’d take it.

“Hiccup?” said Heather. “The bandages on my arm. We can use them for a gag.”

Personally, Hiccup felt more than a little squeamish about stuffing bloody cloth into someone’s mouth, but he had to admit that they did not have much choice. He gave the sleeve of his own shirt an experimental tug, but his clothes had been meant to stand up to dragon-flight and the seam did not budge. Instead, he undid the knots of the fabric around Heather’s arm and unravelled it, catching the blood-smeared wad of fabric beneath.

“One more time,” said Hiccup. It came out calmer than he felt, heart pounding in his chest. “Have you got it?”

She nodded.

“Fine. In that case, it’s time for us to get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I'm not a _totally_ awful person.
> 
> To make clear what Hiccup is refusing to tell Alvin: the strange dragon was brought to Outcast Island about two months ago. She clearly has influence over other dragons. Hiccup has put together that she is encouraging/ordering the other dragons to attack Outcast Island and help her escape, which is why the attacks have been so bad over the last couple of months. Alvin just didn't spot the timeline lining up.
> 
> Alvin's backstory is completely made up here. *hands* Again, I just wanted to tie the HTTYD and Frozen worlds together a bit more in backstory.
> 
> I didn't mean to get in a Hunger Games reference with the "he is mine, and I am his" bit, but I'll just roll with it.


	18. Chapter 18

It was hard to say whether it was Heather holding the sword, or the way that Elsa ripped the bristles off the broom to hold it like a staff, that made Clenchjaw look more concerned. Hiccup was quite happy to not have a weapon, but there was a glint in Heather’s eye which worried him.

Clenchjaw led them down empty corridors, the sounds of shouting and dragons’ roars both far off and dulled by stone. Sweat trickled down Hiccup’s skin, damp in the small of his back and stinging blurs in his eyes, but he gritted his teeth and kept on, glancing around each corner that Clenchjaw indicated with her nods before allowing them around.

In only a few short turns, without meeting with any other Outcasts, they came to a single wooden door. Clenchjaw eyed it apprehensively, and Hiccup nodded to the others. “All right,” he said. “Looks like this is it. Heather, keep an eye on her. Elsa?”

He nodded to the room, waited for Elsa’s nod, and then tried to push the door open.

Nothing happened.

That had not been part of his plans. Frowning, Hiccup rattled the door, and heard Heather mutter something that was probably a curse. He eyed the door; the hinges were on the inside, and he did not have his Gronckle iron knife to break through them as he had in Arendelle that summer. Instead, he dropped to a knee to peer through the gap, trying to check if there was a bolt inside that might indicate someone was in there, but there was only sign of a normal lock.

“Odin help us,” he muttered.

Elsa knelt beside him, leaning the broom against the wall, and Hiccup stole another glance over his shoulder to make sure that Heather still had the sword trained on Clenchjaw. “Clenchjaw,” he said sternly. “Kneel down.”

She gave him a derisive look, and grunted behind her gag.

While Elsa examined the lock, Hiccup pushed upright again and took up the broom instead. He held it across his body, almost aggressive, and walked right up to her. “Kneel down,” he repeated, voice hard even though part of him was disgusted with himself for it, “now.”

He knew better than to make threats. Threats made people eye you up, guess whether you would carry them out, and Hiccup knew that he usually failed such tests. But just acting like he was in control made her hesitate, and then slowly get to her knees with her eyes never pausing in glaring at him.

“Keep an eye on her,” he said to Heather. It probably wasn’t necessary, but he knew that the tone of voice he was using was on the verge of failing him, and he wanted to be sure that Clenchjaw would stay down. He stepped back to the door again, behind them both, even as his hands started to shake and he almost dropped the broom when he went to put it aside.

He knelt back next to Elsa again; she was still frowning at the lock.

“I might be able to pick it,” he said, quietly. “I’ve… yeah, I’ve done it before.” Usually, Elsa would doubtless have wanted those stories, but for now she merely looked them both over, before catching his eyes again.

“Using what?” she murmured.

She had a point. Hiccup grimaced; his only real options for metal were either his foot or his belt. Even Clenchjaw had removed all of her armour, leaving her without any sturdy pieces to take. From where they were, Hiccup knew that he could be back to the dragons’ pens in no time at all. Either he could take some of the armour abandoned there, or he could free one of the dragons to come back, he supposed. It would take more time, and he did not know how long the dragon attack would last, but if it was their only option then it would have to do.

He was about to get to his feet when light glittered on Elsa’s hands, and as he looked round a fine layer of frost spread across her skin. Another glance at Clenchjaw; neither she nor Heather were looking.

“I’ll do it,” said Elsa.

“Not the same way as the jail,” said Hiccup. “We don’t have a warhammer this time.”

Nodding, Elsa eyed the lock. “I think I have an idea.”

She placed one hand right over the keyhole, and Hiccup watched as ice crawled into the lock itself. There was a little on the surface of the door, but mostly he could see the light seeping inside, outlining faintly the metal shapes. Elsa held her breath, fingers tensing against the wood, and then there was an almighty _crack_ as something gave way within the lock.

Clenchjaw gave a grunt of surprise, and Heather whipped round, but Elsa was already pushing the door open, all sign of her magic gone.

“We got it,” said Hiccup, straightening up. “No such thing as a locked door to a blacksmith. Come on.”

Deciding to push his luck, he grabbed Clenchjaw’s wrists to tug her upwards. It might have been a mistake, as his hand was a long way from closing around them, but between his movements and the sword she obliged and got to her feet to enter Alvin’s room as well.

Hiccup was not sure what he expected from the bedroom of Alvin the Treacherous, but in truth it was nothing extraordinary. A stone bed with blankets flung messily over it, stone shelves carved into the walls holding bits of armour, books, glass bottles or pottery. Perhaps stranger were the iron bars in the single, small window, but then again if they were still getting attacked by dragons perhaps there was some logic to the precaution. An armour and weapons rack stood against one wall, and dumped in a dark corner Hiccup saw the flash of red from Toothless’s tail.

He hurried over to it, relieved to see his pack clearly rifled through but with most things still in place. The spyglass fell to the floor as he picked it up, but he stuffed it back in and drew the drawstring tight before shouldering it again. Beneath it, his safety harness seemed to have been pulled out for examination, but he looped that over his arm. Toothless’s saddle and tail had been left in one piece, and he checked the saddlebag to see that the spare tail was still in place.

“Good,” he said. He turned back to Clenchjaw. “You did as we asked; thank you. Over to the window,” he said, with a nod. It might have looked a little less intimidating had Nadder fire not been visible at that particular moment. For a moment, she did not respond. “I’m not going to hurt you, but we’re not taking you with us. Get over to the window, Clenchjaw.”

It seemed to be her name that sealed it; perhaps she had not expected him to remember it at all. But she crossed to stand in front of the window, eyes flickering as a Whispering Death flashed past outside, and Hiccup briskly untied her hands from behind her and bound them to one of the window bars instead, pulling tight but trying not to injure her.

“There,” he said. The bloody bandage around her mouth made her look almost feral, but her eyes were still calm and calculated. “And I mean it: thank you.”

Whether it was genuine, or just the moral high ground, even he was not sure. He checked that her bonds were secure, then cast an eye over the room again, in case there was anything else that was useful.

“Elsa, can you grab the rig?” His eyes fell on a set of keys on a stone shelf beside the bed, and he strode over to snatch them up. It would probably be possible to get into the dragons’ cells without them, but keys would make it a lot easier.

There was a copy of the Book of Dragons beside it, probably Alvin’s family one, and for a moment Hiccup considered taking that away as well. But he doubted that it would make much difference now anyway, and taking another family’s Book of Dragons had never been looked kindly on. They were heirlooms, after all.

“Heather?” he cast around to see her taking down a horn from one of the shelves, sword lowered and apparently forgotten. There was pain in her eyes. “Heather?” he said again, voice softer.

It seemed to snap her back to reality. “It’s my father’s,” she said, holding the horn to her chest. She leant the sword awkwardly against the wall, and set about tying the horn to her belt. “He gave it to me. I don’t know if the rest of my things are here…”

“Is there anything in particular? Anything that can’t be replaced?”

Heather hesitated, then shook her head. “No. Just this.”

“All right. Then, I’m sorry, we need to go. I don’t know how much time we have.” He grabbed his shield from where it had been leant against the end of the weapons rack, and spotted one of the Gronckle iron knives on a shelf beside the door. That should have been everything important; he did not have time to check everything that had been in his pack. He had not even been carrying any notes that might be a problem. “Elsa?”

She had the saddle and tail bundled up in one arm, her broom-turned-staff still held in the other. “Yes. We should go. I will lock the door again.”

“All right,” he said, knowing just what that meant. He caught Heather by the arm at the door and steered her out, Elsa following behind them. Heather started to say something, but cut off as Hiccup threw the keys across to Elsa; she plucked them from the air left-handed, and did not say anything even though they both knew that she would not need them.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder as he strode back on down the corridor, in time to see Elsa close the door behind them and pass her hand over the lock in a glimmer of light. He was not sure how they had agreed, without words, not to tell Heather about Elsa’s magic, but he could not very well ask her now. Better to just go with it.

They hurried back along the corridors, Hiccup wishing that his metal foot was not quite so loud, and Hiccup felt his heart leap when he found the dragons’ cells unguarded. He could hear the faint crooning of the mystery dragon, like a burring in the base of his skull, and one of the Gronckles grunting in the darkness.

“Heather, unlock all the cages,” he said, and nodded as Elsa threw the keys across. “Elsa, you and I are going to get the straps off. Feet first, then muzzles. We need to go in fast. Heather, the colour-changing dragon, that you cleaned? She’s not strapped up.”

“All right,” said Heather. There was only a slight shake in her voice. She put the sword aside as she reached the door to the first Gronckle and opened it, and Hiccup waved for Elsa to take that one. She was the one who had been working in there. He took the first Nadder instead, and was relieved when the male got to his feet, despite the breaths that still rattled in his chest, and held still for Hiccup to shrug off the chains.

He did not blame the Nadder for turning and breathing fire on them, either, leaving them an unrecognisable mass of molten steel. If he had thought of it, he might have asked them to do it himself. It would be more work to make the chains again, at least.

He hurried back out of the cell, saw Elsa heading in to the Monstrous Nightmare, and felt his heart bounce in his chest as he all but ran down to Toothless’s cell. Toothless chirped from behind his muzzle, and Hiccup dropped to his knees to press their foreheads together, feeling as if the world was coming right again. Toothless rumbled, the sound reverberating through Hiccup’s head, and Hiccup let himself smile.

“It’s all right, bud. We’re getting out of here.”

Toothless had more straps and buckles, but at least Hiccup’s hands stopped shaking as he finally managed to get them all undone. All the while, Toothless was patient, holding his chin up or stretching out his legs at just the right moment, until Hiccup finally got everything loose and Toothless shook himself from head to toe with a low, rumbling murmur.

“There we go.” Hiccup straightened up. “I need to get the others, though. Come on.”

By the time that he returned to the corridor, several of the other dragons were already out and about, sniffing each other curiously or glancing up at the hole in the ceiling. It was strange to see them in even weak sunlight, but it made it even clearer that their scales were dull, their hides too close to their bones. The Gronckle, the sick Nadder, the Nightmare, and the strange dragon were all out, and as Hiccup looked down the line he saw Elsa let out the second Nadder as well. Heather led the old Gronckle out of their pen, the door to the Scauldron’s cell already open.

“Elsa.” He caught her shoulder in passing, and nodded to the strange dragon. “Are you all right?”

Her eyes lingered on her, but she nodded. From the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw the dragon raise her head, and again felt as much as heard the murring sound she made. Elsa’s breath hitched, eyes widening, but the dragon was firmly blue and purple and there was no sign of Elsa’s magic lashing out.

“Elsa?” he said again, more quietly.

“It’s all right,” she said. “She’s… grateful.”

When Hiccup looked around, the dragon cocked its head and turned small dark eyes on him. He felt the gratitude like warmth against his skin, nowhere near as intrusive as the anger had been but still tangible, and smiled in return. “Yeah,” he said. “I feel it.” He took a deep breath and looked away. “Now, I’m going to get the Scauldron out. Can you get Toothless’s tail on?”

“Of course.”

He patted her shoulder. It still felt as if every heartbeat was ticking away on them, but once the Scauldron was out then all of the dragons would be loose, and if the worst happened they would be able to get out of there. Even if Toothless might not take too kindly to the indignity of being carried.

It took persuasion to get the Scauldron to leave her water, even when Hiccup hauled aside the heavy metal net that had been put in place to stop her from rising out of it. At least with the water to beat against, he hoped, her legs and wings would not have been so affected by inaction. Finally, though, he managed to get her out of the water, and though she paused to drink deeply she did not make any sign of firing it.

Maybe she only meant it in the same way that Hiccup meant the knife at his belt, after all.

“All right,” said Hiccup, stepping back into the corridor. He had set his pack and shield next to the first dragon’s pen, and even though the distance felt enormous he knew that they were close, so close, to finally being free.

When he looked up, though, he found himself looking straight at Alvin the Treacherous, and even from the distance could see the fury in his eyes.

The Scauldron behind him growled, a deep reverberating sound, and Hiccup heard the sound of boiling water. “Get down!” he shouted, and dropped to a crouch; the other dragons scattered, Heather dodging back into one of the cells and Elsa throwing herself flat against the wall. It was just in time for the Scauldron to fire, blistering water and steam blasting the length of the corridor with accuracy that Hiccup had not expected.

Alvin managed to dodge the strike, but the Outcast behind him was struck by the full force of the blow. He screamed as the boiling water lashed against him, the sound a terrible gurgle, and there were shouts from the other fighters further behind. Steam billowed in the air, and Hiccup felt drips of scalding water on his right arm before he dodged aside. Only when the Scauldron hissed did he dare look up again, sure that the blast was over.

“Go! Get in the air!” Hiccup slapped the neck of the Scauldron, for all that he knew that they had not been around humans and in training long enough to recognise rules like that. Two dragonskin shields appeared in the doorway, filling all of it between them, and as the Outcasts marched forwards they produced still more shields along the way. Probably also dragonskin, at that.

A crossbow bolt snapped through the air, and the Monstrous Nightmare whipped its head aside, roaring its anger. Turning, it breathed fire onto the shieldwall, but Hiccup only heard a muffled shout and saw the Outcasts stop and brace.

He ran the length of the steaming corridor, even as the Nadder with clear breath turned and spat a stream of fire in turn. “No, no! That won’t work!” One of the Outcasts threw a shield to Alvin, who caught it from the air and slipped it into place in one easy movement, just in time to deflect a weak flurry of spines from the other Nadder. “Toothless!”

Toothless fired, directly into Alvin’s shield. The force of it slammed it back against his face, and knocked him to the floor with a shout. Toothless’s tail was on, the dark grey to replace the slashed red, and he slapped it against the floor as he faced the Outcasts.

As he passed the pen that Heather had dodged into, along with the colour-changing dragon, he caught himself and slammed to a halt against the rocky wall. His safety harness was still looped over his arm, completely ignored, and he thrust it into Heather’s hands. “Put this on. Ring goes here.” He tapped the centre of his chest.

“What is this?”

“No time,” he said. He drew his Gronckle iron knife and started running again. Getting to Toothless was the only option now.

“How will we get to the boats?” Heather shouted after him, but he did not have time to explain her mistake. The air was humid in his lungs, and he gasped as he ran, with no time to think about dodging the crossbow bolts that were still flashing through the air. He heard _something_ strike flesh, and one of the Gronckles howled.

Spines rattled on shields, and the air grew hotter as the dragons fired on the advancing shieldwall, but the Outcasts were not fools. Alvin must have realised that something would happen, to have bought back so many of his people with so many shields between them.

There was a meaty slam, and the Monstrous Nightmare slapped its tail against the shieldwall. It bowed for a moment, and there were shouts from the people behind, but it did not break and a moment later a sword flashed through and the smell of blood cut the air as the Nightmare shrieked and whipped its tail back again.

“Elsa!” Hiccup shouted. “Get them in the air!”

He was not sure if Toothless could carry all three of them at once. Normally, he would have no doubts, but after days without food or water he had not wanted to take a risk. If he could get Heather and Elsa into the saddle, then he was fairly sure that one of the other dragons would accept him on their back, and once they got one dragon in the air then the others would follow.

Elsa did not have the time to respond, however, before Alvin all but knocked aside another Gronckle’s blast and swung his shield in her direction. She hit the ground, rolling aside, and came up with a lashing movement of her arm only to stagger back and clutch her chest, cry cutting through the tumult.

Her magic. Hiccup’s eyes fell on the mirror on Alvin’s shoulder, the same as the one in their cell and the one that still sat on Clenchjaw’s armour in the same room as them, and was certain in a heartbeat. Stooping, he grabbed a rock from the floor and flung it as hard as he could muster at Alvin. It bounced uselessly off his shoulder, but even a moment seemed to be enough for Elsa to catch herself, clench her fists, and grab the broom that leant against the wall.

It was the one that had been in the room all along, the stripped makeshift staff still on the other side of the corridor and a couple of dragons, but she swung it anyway. It cracked down on Alvin’s fingers, drawing a yell of frustration, and then she put all of her weight into a thrust that knocked the shield from his hand.

Alvin’s sword slashed down, and Elsa barely got the broom in the way, metal biting into the wood. Hiccup weaved between the dragons to reach Toothless, whose second shot had still failed to break the wall.

“Toothless!” he pointed almost to the ground, where the round shields that the Vikings used were not quite close-packed enough, or the right shape, to cover ever inch. “Plasma blast!”

Toothless fired, so low that it scraped along the rock and left a molten streak. It slammed through one of the gaps in the shield, and Hiccup heard more screaming but could not think about what he had just done, what he had just caused, the bolt of pain that ran down his own left leg at the thought; he had to focus on the way that the shieldwall crumpled in like a buckling helm.

Alvin’s sword shrieked as it scraped down the rock wall, narrowly avoiding Elsa. A punch from Alvin’s massive left fist slammed into her shoulder, her arm raised fast enough to get in the way but not enough to dodge entirely, and she was thrown to the ground by the armour and weapons that the Outcasts had shed that morning, a time that now seemed an eternity ago.

“No!” Hiccup shouted. He went to dart towards her, but a stream of Nadder fire blocked his path, and though he ducked from instinct as much as thought about the flicker of movement from the corner of his eye, he felt the crossbow bolt that skimmed across the top of his head. It stung like a lash across the knuckles, and he felt the hot well of blood, but did not pay attention to it as he ducked back to Toothless again.

A spear protruding from the spearwall caught one of the Nadders, the young one, in the flank, and he pulled away with a cry. One great snap, and the spear was bitten into pieces, but the damage could not be undone. If the dragons had flown immediately, they would be gone by now, but anger or loyalty or both kept them fighting.

“Fire!” Hiccup pointed to the end of the shieldwall, creeping round towards Alvin. Toothless’s blast caught the endmost shield and ripped it from the man’s hands, just in time for a volley of Nadder spines to cut down that line. He saw blood, heard screams.

With a roar, Alvin bought his sword down where Elsa had sprawled; she grabbed Clenchjaw’s armour for a shield, the blade ringing on the metal but at least not hitting flesh. Groping among the items beside her, her hand fell on Alvin’s own helmet, and she hurled it towards his face. At closer range than Hiccup had been standing, it made a hearty contact, and sent Alvin staggering back with lines of blood drawn across his skin.

She pushed to her feet, wrapping the armour around one arm, and grabbed the second Gronckle knife from where it had been left as well. “Hiccup!” she shouted across the distance. Her face was flushed, though with heat or pain he could not tell. “Go!”

Alvin slashed, though the blood was running in his eyes and he must have been half-blinded; she dodged aside, but had to use her armour-wrapped arm to deflect the sword further.

“I’m not going without you!”

“Get in the air!” she snapped. “You’ll be more use up there.”

Something butted against his hip, and though Hiccup knew it had to be a dragon just because it was not a weapon, he still spun with his heart in his mouth. It was Toothless, shoulder tilted to offer Hiccup the saddle.

Hiccup tore one more desperate glance at Elsa, just as she ducked under another of Alvin’s blows. He had her pinned, though, and they were too close for any of the dragons to fire. Toothless might have had the precision, but his blasts were still so powerful, and the wall so close a backdrop, that Elsa could well be injured too.

Even if he worried that Elsa might do something foolish, he _had_ to trust Toothless. There was no way that Toothless would let anything happen to either of them.

With a growl of frustration, Hiccup slid into the saddle, and the click of his foot back into place in the stirrup was as familiar as putting on his leg. He turned to the ground at the feet of the shieldwall, and called, “Fire!” again. This time the blast was almost parallel, turning the ground to a molten, glowing streak. Either in echo or by chance, the old Gronckle took the opportunity to lay down lava in front of the shieldwall as well, a spear catching her thick hide in passing but barely managing more than a nick. There were shouts of frustration, calls for the buckets of water that had been in the area in previous days, but Hiccup could see that they were caught and that it might have just been the time that he needed.

Wings and dragons seemed to fill the air, and when the Monstrous Nightmare roared at full power Hiccup was left with ringing ears and watering eyes. He pressed low to Toothless’s back, and they dodged and wove between the other dragons back to the cell where Heather was still pressed against the wall, white-faced.

“Come on,” said Hiccup, holding out his hand. Heather looked at them both in shock and fear. He gestured more impatiently. “Heather! Come on!”

She held out a shaking hand, and he pulled her into the saddle in front of him despite her yelp. Grabbing the safety strap was second nature now, and he clipped it onto the ring in the centre of her chest before grabbing her hands and pushing them onto the front of the saddle.

“Now hold on tight!”

They bounded out of the cell, into the open, and Heather was already screaming as Toothless sprang up and into the air in one huge beat of his wings. The air rushed and popped, and a crossbow bolt whipped past them with a hiss. They hit the outside air amid thin rain, and within seconds the other dragons were following, the unsteady Nadder first and then the others, all in a flurry and almost rushing into each other. Hiccup used one hand to press both of Heather’s to the edge of the saddle, the other wrapped around her both to hold her in place and to make sure that she leant slightly to one side so that she could see over her shoulder.

Toothless barked, almost sounding like an order, and the dragons moved aside so that the hole beneath them could be seen again. There was no sign of Elsa, and Hiccup drew a deep breath, ready to drive back down again, when there was a human scream, a dragon cry, and a flurry of red-orange fire that seemed to fill the tunnel.

Heather screamed and jolted in his arms, but he kept tight hold and shifted Toothless’s tail, pushing them into a dive. At the last moment, however, Toothless rolled aside from the entrance, and it was on the tip of Hiccup’s tongue to shout what might have been his first ever anger with Toothless when one last dragon erupted from the hole in a flurry of wings, colours dancing on its skin, Elsa on its back and clinging to its neck.

“Elsa!” he shouted, darting into the air after her. They levelled off for a moment, high up and among the rest of the dragons, and she looked up with a shaky smile. Hiccup’s pack was slung over her shoulder, his shield in her hand and Clenchjaw’s armour still wrapped around her other arm.

“I did say to go,” she said.

“You didn’t say that you _rode_ the dragons,” Heather put in, sounding only a step or two from hysteria. “Oh gods, you _ride_ dragons.”

Fire was still burning beneath them, but Hiccup knew that it would not be long before the Outcasts got through and came after them properly. Before that, though, he wanted to break open the cells, so that they could not be used to hold dragons again. The closest they would get to that would be to split the rock apart.

He drew Toothless up into the air, climbing high enough that they would be beyond catapult fire, then shifted his seat and tightened his hand around Heather’s on the saddle. “Hold on,” he said, “and lean forwards.” She did so, stiffly, and he pushed them down into a dive.

Heather screamed, the sound swallowed by the air, and tucked herself down against Toothless’s back. At least that was a good move. Hiccup kept his eyes fixed on the ground below, accelerating in seconds, until right as the rock seemed to rush up towards them he twitched his knee against Toothless’s side and Toothless responded with a full-powered blast.

Rock shattered, the cell underneath opened up, and fire and shards of stone spun in all direction. Hiccup barely had time to register it, pulling them up again into a tight climb. A glance over his shoulder told him that the other dragons were copying him, as he suspected that they would. Fire and lava blazed against the ground, melting through or knocking down the roof. Even the colour-changing dragon, with Elsa still on her back, flew back down and shot a jet of flame into the depths of the cells, blasting through one of the stone walls and sending a whole segment of the roof crashing down.

The cells were ripped open, gutted. Hiccup thought that he saw Alvin standing amid the ruins, looking up at them, but he was too exhausted and too far up to care. He craned his head, and shouted across to Elsa.

“Higher!” he called. “And let’s turn south.”

Elsa nodded, relief clear in her eyes, and Hiccup led the dragons into a climb that took them almost to the lower level of the clouds, but firmly out of the reach of even catapults. Safety, within sight of Outcast Island; it was a strange feeling.

They levelled out, Hiccup deliberately keeping the speed down for the sake of the dragons that had been captives for longer. It was cold, stinging his skin and making his fingers half-numb, but it was hard to see that as a problem when the only other thing that he felt was _free_. Alvin knew where they would go, and there was no point in trying to hide their path, but even at a careful Gronckle’s pace they would be able to outstrip any boat.

Finally, Heather’s fear-stiffened form seemed to relax slightly, although she still stifled a scream as she glanced to the side. “Oh gods,” she said; Hiccup felt it as much as heard it. “Oh gods. You fly dragons.”

“Sorry,” said Hiccup, with a wince. “I probably should have warned you about that part. Don’t worry.” He patted her shoulder. “This safety strap will hold you on. I’ve used it before.”

“How long has Berk ridden dragons?” said Heather.

“About a year.” He did not add that only he had been flying a year, his friends a little less, and that the number of riders had doubled only in the summer. There would be enough time to explain that when they were safely back on Berk.

“Oh gods.”

“It’s all right,” he patted her shoulder. “We’re only a few hours from Berk.” She was breathing heavily, he realised, and with a wave to Elsa started them on a gentle descent again. They might have pushed too high, too fast; the others had all needed time to get used to high flights, as well. “Sorry. The air gets kind of thin up here.”

“I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t _see_ when you dived like that,” she said.

Oh, yeah, there had been that as well. Hiccup winced again. It seemed like a very long time ago now that he had first discovered all of those things, how thin the air became as they flew ever higher, how accelerating too fast had made his vision go black. At the time, it had been terrifying. “That’s from the speed,” he said. “Don’t worry, there’s no permanent damage.” At least, none that he had noticed, after it had happened to him. “You’ll be fine.”

“And heading to Berk.”

“And heading to Berk,” he echoed. This time, when Heather glanced around them, there was no scream to go along with it. “I promise you, you’re quite safe. Neither Toothless nor I will let anything happen to you. For now, just…” Hiccup shrugged. “Sit back, enjoy the ride, and I apologise for the lack of interesting scenery.”

That, at least, made Heather laugh, even if it was still tight and shaky. “I guess you can get good views of places.”

“Oh, yeah. The best sunsets in the archipelago are the ones seen from dragonback.” Though he may have been biased on that point. “At least, if the weather isn’t as bad as this.” They would have needed to go above at least one layer of clouds to get away from the thin, cloying rain, but the clouds were high today and Heather was already struggling. “Hey, at least the rain might get us a bit cleaner.”

“Do you always look on the bright side, in Berk?”

“Considering how much it rains, sometimes we have to make one up. But yeah,” he said, smiling although he knew that she could not see. “We try to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing fight scenes.
> 
> As I believe some readers have guessed, Hiccup has now figured out that the mirrors were blocking Elsa's magic in some way. Don't worry, we'll get the full explanation for that eventually.
> 
> (And that makes twice in about three months that Elsa has told Hiccup to run, and he's tried to refuse. At least this time, he had Toothless to listen to. Subconsciously, he was almost certainly worried about seeing the same sort of tragedy that he did in Arendelle.)
> 
> And that is the end of the Outcast Arc! Next up, the Heather Arc.


	19. Chapter 19

The blazing sunset gave way to dark night, and the air grew cold around them. Hiccup felt his steam-damped clothes dry and turn cold, the torn knees letting stinging air reach his skin while his scalp throbbed hot. He felt Heather starting to shiver, and knew that he was not far off the same himself, but between Berkian winters and high flights he knew that he was more used to the cold than most people.

Except Elsa, of course, who he was sure would be fine. Even as his and Heather’s breath fogged on the air; she had said that her magic stopped her from feeling the cold. Toothless was warm beneath them, at least, as the fires of Berk pricked into sight on the horizon and Hiccup felt relief wash through him.

“Nearly there,” he said.

As they drew closer, he had Toothless fire into the air, two light blasts a few seconds apart that scattered purple light across the sky. Heather jumped, grabbing at the front of the saddle again. He had released his hold across her body, settling his arms either side of her instead, but had remained aware of stopping her from falling throughout their flight.

“Toothless is the only Night Fury,” he said, right beside her ear. “They see that fire, they’ll know it’s me.”

Sure enough, it was no time at all before another dragon loomed out of the darkness, this time Meatlug with Fishlegs on her back and looking at them in bewilderment. “Hiccup? Elsa?”

“Long story,” Hiccup shouted back, cupping one hand around his mouth. “I need you to warn the lookouts. And we’ve got a Scauldron.”

The Scauldron was, to be fair, probably going to be harder to sort out than Heather. Another person on Berk was another person, but Scauldrons needed access to water and a considerable amount of food. Hiccup was not honestly sure that they would be able to keep them on Berk, even if they wanted to stay.

They would worry about that later, though. For now, he let Toothless have a little extra speed as they headed straight for home. It would be crowded if the rest of the dragons landed with them, but they would doubtless find room, and Hiccup was too tired to face the village green, the crowd that could gather there, and the walk back through the village at the end.

“How are we going to land?” said Heather, between the chattering of her teeth.

Hiccup was just starting to shiver as well, and home was sounding better than ever. “Don’t worry,” he replied. “Toothless and I are well-practiced at this.”

He kept the landing as smooth as possible, letting Toothless almost glide to a halt and fold his wings before walking closer to the house. Elsa and the colour-changing dragon were right behind him, and the rumbles and grunts from the dragons above suggested that they were trying to work out some sort of queue. Toothless barked up at them again, and the grumbling lessened.

Stiffly, Hiccup swung his right leg out of the saddle, just as Stoick appeared around the corner of the building. He stepped back, unclipped Heather from the safety strap, and kept hold of one hand to help her down as well. The shaking of her hands was probably cold, but he did not want to take any chances. Turning, he caught sight of Elsa sliding off the back of the dragon, almost falling from the higher dismount but catching herself, Clenchjaw’s stolen armour clattering to the ground.

She looked round, tired relief in her eyes, and Hiccup crossed the distance between them in a few strides to scoop her into an embrace again. She clung to him in return, and he knew that her shaking had nothing to do with the cold at all, was fear and pain and everything that his mistakes had put them through. He cradled her head with one hand, resting his forehead on her shoulder in return, and felt hot tears in his eyes at how close to tragedy they had come.

“Elsa!” Anna’s voice was almost a sob, and she slammed into both of them, throwing her arms around Elsa as she did so. Elsa grunted, sounding pained, but as Hiccup extricated himself she hugged her sister back.

Anna was mumbling something in Arendellen, messy, and as she started crying into Elsa’s hair it only become less intelligible. Something about the length of time they had been gone; Hiccup felt another pang of guilt as he realised he had lost track of the days, and that it must have been even worse for those remaining in Berk with no idea what was going on.

“Hiccup?” said Stoick. There was not much light, but Hiccup could hear the strain in his father’s voice, make out the lines of pain in his face.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” Hiccup started, reaching out to take his father’s hand, but he was crushed into an embrace all over again, the breath all but driven from his lungs and his face enveloped in Stoick’s beard. It was still a relief, a feeling of _home_ and the hope – however childish he knew that it was – that his father would be able to fix this.

“Oh, thank Odin,” Stoick muttered. “I thought I’d lost you. Thank Odin. You came back.” He drew back, but kept both hands on Hiccup’s shoulders. “Where have you been, son?”

“It’s… a long story. Please, let me tell it inside.” That part did come out something of a plea, just wanting to be able to sit and drink water before he had to talk. His throat was burning dry.

Stoick stroked Hiccup’s hair, then horror filled his expression as he drew his hand away and saw the blood smeared across it.

“It’s all right!” said Hiccup quickly. “It’s not major, just a scratch, and I promise I will explain that as well. Dad, look, first, I need to introduce you to Heather.”

He grabbed his father’s hand to steer him around, and Stoick’s look of confusion only deepened when he saw Heather still standing beside Toothless in her filthy clothes and the safety harness. She was resting one hand on Toothless’s head, but it might have been for support to judge by the fear and exhaustion that seemed to shroud her.

“Heather, this is my Dad, Stoick. Dad, this is Heather. She was captive – yes, so were we, that’s part of the story as well,” he added, as he saw the pieces starting to fall into place in Stoick’s mind. “And obviously we weren’t leaving her behind.”

“I’d say well met,” said Heather, with another shiver. “But I can’t really lay claim to that.”

“What in Thor’s name is going on here?” Gobber said, joining them. “Hiccup! Elsa!” He hurried forwards and grabbed Hiccup around the shoulder, squeezing him to his side. “Where the bloody hell have you two been? How–” he paused, looking in shock at the dragon that was now gently nuzzling Anna and Elsa, soft-coloured patterns drifting across her nose. “How the Thor did you end up with a Hobblegrunt?”

“Hobb– Hobblegrunt. Good.” Hiccup nodded. “It’s a Hobblegrunt. I had no idea. Let me tell this in order, _please_. I just… really need some water, and blankets. All of us will.”

“Gobber, we’ll need Gothi, as well,” Stoick added. “See if you can grab one of the riders, they’ll be here soon, no doubt.”

It had been a lot easier a year ago, when he could sneak in and out of the village almost as he pleased without this level of fanfare. Hiccup put a hand on Heather’s upper arm to guide her towards the front door, suspecting that unless he took charge, they were never going to make it inside. Sure enough, Stoick moved to follow them, and a glance across told him that Elsa was leading Anna back as well, Anna still wiping tears from her cheeks and snot from her nose, one arm almost fiercely around Elsa’s back.

“Go on,” he said to Heather, pushing the door open. It felt heavier than he remembered, but the roll of warmth from the fire was like a blessing from the gods. Better still, one of the benches had ended up not far from it, and Hiccup nodded in its direction. “Take a seat. Elsa,” he added, spotting the Hobblegrunt not far behind them, “Do you know what she might want?”

Elsa stilled, looking round at the dragon, who crooned and nudged her arm again. The Hobblegrunt was definitely too big for the house, even if she were able to fit her fin through the door. “I will see if she will go into the woodshed,” she said. She rubbed her sister’s shoulder. “Anna, wait for me inside.”

“No!” snapped Anna, and the Hobblegrunt jumped back with a shudder of colour.

Elsa swayed, putting a hand to her chest as she gathered herself, then spoke more carefully. “Anna, I will be right in. This dragon is… she does not trust easily. I am not sure if she will wait with Thornado. Please,” she added, voice softening. “Trust me.”

There were still tears in Anna’s eyes, and she clung to Elsa’s hand for a moment longer, then with pressed-tight lips she let go and stepped back. Elsa turned, offering her hand to the Hobblegrunt again for another gentle touch, then clicked her tongue softly and set about leading her round to the woodshed.

“Come on,” said Hiccup, softly. He put his hand to the small of Anna’s back as she stepped inside, just for a couple of seconds.

It was no surprise for there to be a flicker of movement from the sky, and he could not help a moment of tired annoyance, wanting little more than to sleep and deal with this in the morning. But once again, that was not an option. Astrid jumped down before Stormfly had even fully landed, and ran straight towards the house until Hiccup held up both hands to stop her.

“Hiccup?!”

“Astrid, there will be a meeting of the riders tomorrow,” he said. “Not at first light – midday, more likely. I have five dragons who will need food, water and shelter for the night,” he gestured to the open ground where the rest of the dragons had now landed, “and there’s a Scauldron down by the docks which… gods only know, I’m sorry. I need you to get the other riders and take care of them. The younger Nadder,” he pointed him out, “he’s wheezing, but he seems stable. I’ll ask Gobber to come round as soon as I can.” Gobber, a little further down the slope, was waving Snotlout and Hookfang off to Gothi’s spire. “All right?”

She hesitated, and for a moment he was concerned that he had offended her, or that she might see it as being brushed off or dismissed, but perhaps he just looked as bad as he felt. “All right,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Unless there’s an emergency,” he said. “Then… get me.”

Astrid nodded, and turned towards the new dragons looking only slightly daunted. Hiccup breathed out, hanging his head as it felt like more energy left him, then looked up again as a warm hand came to rest on his shoulder. It was Stoick, though, and he half-smiled, tender, as he nodded towards the door.

“Come on,” he said, and Hiccup wondered fleetingly if it were a deliberate echo. But he nodded, and finally allowed himself to go inside as well.

 

 

 

 

 

The first cups of water quickly gave way to broth heated up on the fire, and all three of them were plied with blankets as they took their place on the bench. Hiccup removed his foot, wincing at the feeling of damp wool on his skin, and peeled off his socks in turn. The skin beneath was red and sore, and he grimaced. There went another few days.

Joining them, Gobber waved Hiccup and Elsa away to remove Toothless’s saddle himself, before providing him with a bucket of water that the Night Fury slurped up in no time at all. Elsa had placed Hiccup’s pack at his feet, and he picked through it, almost surprised to find that the buckle had been left there.

It was weightier in his hands now, and colder; that might have been real or might have just been the knowledge of its falsehood. Stoick bought over the cauldron of broth to set right in front of them, and stopped short, colour draining from his face.

“It’s not real,” said Hiccup, immediately. Stoick remained still, looking from the buckle to Hiccup’s eyes and back again, and Hiccup felt the well of tears and guilt as he wondered, and tried not to wonder about, what had to be going through his father’s mind. “I… I found it on Venomspur. The man from the boat,” he added, as if any of them could have forgotten. “It caught my attention, and I thought it stood out, so…” he trailed off. “So I took it.”

Stoick set the cauldron down, and without speaking pulled over one of the large chairs to sit opposite them. Hiccup could not look at him, feeling the weight of deception between his shoulders. It had taken him days to start to come to terms with what had happened, and he was exposing it to his father in moments. A good thing that Stoick the Vast was so known for his strength.

“I found a picture in Mom’s journals that looked like it,” he said. He ran one thumb over the ironwork. “And then I showed Gobber the picture, and he said that it looked like a buckle he had made her. So I thought… you can guess what I thought.”

Gobber bought over a chair as well, and set it beside Stoick, on the left-hand side so that he could rest his good hand on Stoick’s arm. Hiccup was made aware of Heather and Elsa on either side of him, and Anna on the far side of Elsa and Heather closest to the fire and the warmth.

“I found a piece of paper on the boat which I believed gave me a heading.” How much had been true, and how much a lie, he did not know. “I thought it was only going to be a couple of days, so I left the letter saying that I was going mapping, and flew north.”

“It was my idea to go with him,” Elsa added, though whether it was to mollify Stoick or Anna it was difficult to say. “I insisted.”

“I saw the letter had been changed to add your name,” Stoick said, although there was still a tightness and a distance in his voice.

Hiccup fidgeted, nearly knocking over the half-full cup in his lap. He moved it to the floor, tucking it beneath the bench where his remaining foot would not clip it. “It was a trap,” he said flatly. “Meant for you, but… I was the one who walked into it. The island that it led to was… destroyed. But Alvin was waiting there.”

“Alvin?” Stoick said. There was more than a hint of a growl to his voice.

“Yeah. He took us back to Outcast Island – all that probably accounts for the first four days, I think,” said Hiccup. “He revealed that he had dragons captive there, and told me that I was going to show him how to train them.”

“And did you?” said Anna, quietly.

“He threatened Elsa,” Hiccup said. He could still remember the gleam in Alvin’s eyes as he laid out the leverage he had. “He threatened Toothless. He cut Heather - where is Gothi?” he looked to Gobber.

“Should be on her way.”

“He made it clear what would happen if I didn’t.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and even that felt dirty. It was like something had been scoured into his bones, a stain that could never be made clean. Treachery. “I went as slowly as I could. I got the dragons cleaned up and fed, but I ended up showing him the,” he waved his left hand vaguely, “the hand thing. How to greet them. Alvin, and three of the others, got to see it done and try it themselves. They answered to him.”

“But you got away,” said Stoick. “And you’ve saved the dragons, as well.”

“We blasted through the ceilings of the pens,” Hiccup said. “I don’t think they can be used again. But it doesn’t undo what Alvin knows now. How to greet dragons, instead of attacking them.”

“You did well,” Stoick said.

Hiccup went to disagree, to lay out just how many ways he had failed – failed himself, failed Toothless and Elsa, failed Heather, failed dragons in general and Berk as a whole – but it was too humiliating to lay out in front of everyone. In front of Stoick, and just Stoick, he might have been able to; he had been a failure to his father for so long that it hardly stung any more. But to the others, he had for a while made himself something better, and the thought of ripping open that old wound was too much.

He settled for shaking his head, and offering the buckle to his father.

“It’s only a copy,” he said, “but I know what it’s a copy of.”

“Thank you,” said Stoick. He took the buckle, turning it over in his hands as delicately as if it were made of glass. “And I want you to know that I would have done the same.” He caught Hiccup’s gaze. “I would have looked, as well.”

Perhaps it was meant to be a reassurance, but somehow it felt like the worst part. If Stoick and Thornado had been there, perhaps that would have caught the Outcasts by surprise. If they had taken all of the riders, surely they would not have been captured at all. But even the gods could only change the future, and not the past.

There was a rap at the door, the sound of wood on wood, and Gobber patted Stoick’s arm again before going to answer it. Sure enough, Gothi was outside, staff in one hand and basket in the other, and she cast her eye over the entire scene without looking surprised by any of it. Snotlout was behind her, looking fretful and standing on tiptoe to peer in.

“Astrid said there was a meeting in the morning,” he began, “but–”

“Yup, there’s a meeting in the morning,” said Gobber. “Now go help the others with the dragons.”

He closed the door without giving Snotlout a chance to answer, for which Hiccup was mostly just grateful. Gothi crossed to them, set her basket down, and unwrapped her calfskin to lay on the floor. As she was scattering sand over it, Hiccup realised that Heather was frowning at the scene, and took pity on her.

“Heather, this is Gothi, our village elder, probably our village eldest, and wisewoman.”

“Aye, he’s warmed up if his tongue’s back,” said Gobber, in the tone he usually reserved for asking Weyland for some sort of inspiration.

“This is how she communicates,” Hiccup added, pointing to the calfskin and sand. He picked up the cup of broth again; even though it was lukewarm, it still felt like the best thing he had tasted in years.

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” said Gobber, settling back into his chair where he could see what Gothi was writing. She started making her marks. “Right. She wants to know what injuries you all _know_ that you’ve got, and no yak dung along the way.”

She gave him an unimpressed look, and pointed her staff in his direction, but did not clip him on the shoulder or helmet.

“Oh, the words were to that effect,” said Gobber dismissively. “Hiccup?”

“Sore leg,” he stuck out his stump, “some bruises, scraped knees, cut to the head. Only the cut probably needs looking at, though.”

Gothi turned her piercing eyes on Elsa, who put a hand carefully to her chest again. “I… took a blow, when I was fighting. Here,” she said. “I heard something crack.”

Without looking, Gothi sketched out a couple of marks. “Cracked ribs or keel,” said Gobber. This time, she did flick him on the knee with her staff. “Ow! It says – oh, right,” he caught himself. “Breastbone. Not dealing with dragons. Yes, I see, I see. Would help if you didn’t use the same sym– all right!” he finished, as she waved her staff threateningly at him again.

“And your hands,” said Hiccup. Even Elsa looked at him in confusion, as he reached over and turned one of her hands so that the palms and fingertips were upwards. “The frostbite.”

“Oh,” Elsa said. “I forgot.”

“Heather?” said Hiccup, looking to his other side.

She looked around uncertainly; it must have been strange to speak to strangers like this, especially ones that knew each other so well. “Well, my arm, like Hiccup said,” she said. “There’s no other blood.”

“Did you twist your knee, or bruise it?” said Hiccup. She looked surprised. “I saw you favouring it.”

“Just twisted.”

Gothi nodded, slowly, then swept her calfskin clean with her foot and wrote again. Gobber tilted his head to read over her shoulder. “She says that she guesses you’ve all got bruises, but they don’t count. And she’ll start with the walruses.” He paused, then winced in obvious expectation of a staff to the head, before cracking open one eye. This time around, Gothi was giving him a look of flat disbelief. “Wounds,” he said finally. “That would be wounds.”

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Gothi stepped around so that she was in front of Hiccup and Heather, and gestured for Heather’s arm. Heather offered it up uncertainly, and Gothi looked closely at the wound, then turned to examine Hiccup’s head in turn. He heard her sigh.

“Yeah, I probably deserve that,” he muttered.

Gothi drew a couple of symbols, then crouched down to search through her basket. “That means Hiccup first,” said Gobber. “You’ll probably need to sit on the floor, lad. As for you ladies, I would suggest warm water and clean clothes while you’re waiting.”

“Any chance of some fish for Toothless?” said Hiccup. He paused to drain the last of his cup of broth, feeling a little too full but revelling in the taste of something other than fish and the feeling of his mouth not being dry. “Alvin was messing with his food. A whole thing about blue oleander.” He waved a hand vaguely, then used both arms to lower himself to the floor just in front of the bench. “That can wait for tomorrow. He’ll be hungry, that’s the main thing.”

“Him and all of you,” said Gobber wryly, standing up again. Hiccup smiled, even if it was weary. Finally, after what felt like an age, he could say that he was home again.

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever Gothi put on his head stung, and at times it felt as if she was pulling his hair out, but to Hiccup’s relief the wound did not need sewing up and was simply smeared with some herb-based paste that smelt like something to baste mutton in. He did not say as much aloud.

Anna finally introduced herself properly to Heather, apparently calmer with the knowledge that Elsa was sitting beside Gothi to watch over Hiccup and showing no signs of going anywhere again. She took Heather by the arm and led her into their bedroom, the former workshop, before returning for water, soap and washcloths. Of all people in Berk, she probably appreciated most the chance to wash properly.

When Heather reappeared, she still looked pale and tired, but dressed in clean clothes and with her face scrubbed clean it was still a marked improvement. She even managed a smile as she returned to the bench, one sleeve rolled up to expose the cut on her arm. The skin around it looked red –Hiccup hoped it was not infected – and there were bruises around her wrists. Glancing at his own hands, Hiccup was almost surprised to see bruises there as well; the manacles, he supposed. Other things had seemed more important at the time.

Gothi patted him on the shoulder, which he would guess was his cue to move; he shuffled along the floor a way, muscles aching, then levered himself back up onto the bench again. When Gothi waved Heather over, she only hesitated for a moment before sitting cross-legged on the floor, proffering her arm without needing to be prompted this time.

Bucket in hand, Anna stepped out of the room as well. “I’m going to get more water,” she announced. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” said Elsa, looking up.

Anna hesitated, but then shook her head firmly. “No. You stay here. I’ll be fast.”

Hiccup put his hand on Elsa’s knee, until she reached over and took it instead. At least Anna had proven herself quick to adapt over the summer, a survivor in every way. She would come back from this as well, Hiccup was sure.

Mostly sure, at least.

“I completely screwed up the introductions, didn’t I?” said Hiccup. He scratched just behind his ear, then regretted it as he felt the dirt beneath his nails. “Sorry. Dad, Gobber, this is Heather. She was captured by the Outcasts as well; we were in the same cell. She helped us with the dragons, to get them healthy and to escape with them. Heather, this is my father,” he gestured, “Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk. And this is Gobber, the blacksmith, who taught me… well, maybe not quite all I know, but certainly a good deal of it. And I’m sure that Anna said that she’s Elsa’s sister.”

“Chief?” Heather looked round, wide-eyed, to where Stoick was still sitting but had produced a slate and chalk from somewhere about the room to make his notes on. He looked up, expression really quite mild considering everything that had happened this evening. “I didn’t realise, I…”

“No, no, there’s no ceremony or anything of that sort,” said Stoick, quickly but firmly. “You are here as our guest, and I thank you for what you’ve done for Hiccup and for Elsa.”

“Thank you.” Heather winced as Gothi spread a different, whitish paste over the wound on her arm, then started to bandage it in brisk movements. “And – yes, Anna did say.” She smiled to Elsa. “I can see the resemblance.”

Gothi tied the knot on the bandages, sharply enough for Heather to flinch again, then unrolled her sleeve and smoothed it down for her. Even without her marks or Gobber’s translation, Hiccup suspected that was a modicum of an apology. She tapped Heather’s knee with one nail.

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” said Heather. “It’s just twisted. Rest should be fine.”

Gothi looked at her more pointedly, and tapped the nail again, this time right on the tender point beside the kneecap that made Heather’s leg twitch. With another glance around, Heather unlooped the strap of her borrowed leggings from beneath her foot and pulled them up to reveal her knee, with faint mottled bruises around it and what might have been swelling. With one curt nod, Gothi set to examining the knee with both hands, and Heather looked round to Hiccup again

“We all do what Gothi says,” said Hiccup. There was a twitch of Gothi’s lip that might have been amusement. “It works out best in the long run. She’s good with the dragons, as well. Gobber,” he added, “those dragons from Outcast Island, they aren’t great. Food and water should do for most of them, and freedom to move, but one of the Nadders is wheezing and they’re all pretty roughed-up from what happened.”

“Are they good for the night?” said Gobber. Hiccup nodded. “Then they can wait, and get themselves some sleep. As can all of you. Now, we can get some blankets down…”

Hiccup waved it away. “Heather can have my bed. Toothless and I can take the floor,” he said. He pointed with his thumb to the large space that Toothless liked to curl in when they were all downstairs. You were on Outcast Island longer,” he said, directly to Heather, “and you’re our guest. Please.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He knew that he was probably overriding his father and Gobber, and it had been somewhat deliberate considering how quickly he had stepped in to speak. But he was too tired to face an argument, certainly tired enough to sleep on the floor, and did not mind in the slightest having an excuse to curl beside Toothless in the night. Gobber and Stoick exchanged a look, but then Stoick nodded.

“Aye, that sounds like a plan.”

The door was shoved open, and Anna reappeared with her two buckets of water, marching them over to set them beside the fire. Barely were they set down to warm, though, before she was back at Elsa’s side, linking their arms and sitting knee-to-knee.

Gothi released Heather’s knee, and handed over a small ceramic pot from her basket, before scratching a couple of quick marks on her calfskin. “She says you should rub it in morning and night, and besides that if you get pain,” Gobber provided.

“Thank you, again,” said Heather, tucking the pot into her lap and pushing down her leggings again. “You’ve really been too kind to me – I’ll have to repay you for this…”

“You’re our guest,” said Stoick. He had set the buckle aside, leaving his hands folded in his lap, but had watched with careful eyes as everything was said and done. Even without words, Hiccup knew that the last days had shaken him greatly, had been a nightmare for those on Berk as well as for Elsa, Toothless and Hiccup. “And from what Hiccup has said, you have already helped him greatly. Consider this our thanks for that. Elsa.”

She looked around sharply, dragged away from looking at Anna.

“I believe Gothi is waiting for you.”

Heather quickly moved away, leaving the spot on the floor free, but Elsa hesitated before taking her place. She offered Gothi her hands, first, and Gothi frowned as she tested them with her fingertips and her nails in turn, watching for the twitches of Elsa’s fingertips or the flickers that Hiccup could also see in her expression. This time, the message that Gothi wrote on her calfskin was longer.

“She says that there’s nowt to be done now,” said Gobber. “Just to keep them warm. But it’s mild, so it shouldn’t cause problems. Aye, see? I can read, when you write clearly,” he added.

Gothi rolled her eyes, released Elsa’s hands, and gestured to the centre of her chest. The shirt she now wore was high-necked, and it seemed to dawn on everyone in the room at once that it would need to be removed for Gothi to see the injury that Elsa had indicated. Gobber and Stoick both got to their feet, and Hiccup cleared his throat and tucked his foot into his belt.

“Gobber, have you seen my crutches?” he said. “This time, I mean.”

“I kept track of them, don’t you worry,” Gobber replied. Sure enough, he produced them immediately from the shadows of the storage nook beneath the stairs. “We’ll look tomorrow and see how much time you need off it, all right?”

“Yeah, I know,” said Hiccup, accepting the crutches and levering himself upright. “Come on, Heather, I’ll show you upstairs. Please don’t mind the mess.”

“I’ll head up and check on those dragons,” Gobber said. “And those friends of yours,” he added, with a pointed look at Hiccup. “They’ve been running around like blue-arsed flies these last days, keeping themselves busy, but heaven knows they can panic among them. You think those dragons will be all right with them?”

“They’re good dragons. They came round quickly to trust us. As long as they don’t feel too panicked or like they’re being put in a cage again, they should be all right. It is getting late, Gobber, you don’t–”

“Take Thornado, if you need,” Stoick interrupted.

“I’ll see how that Hobblegrunt feels about me going into the woodshed,” said Gobber. “They’re picky buggers, by all accounts.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” said Hiccup. “I’ll leave you to sort that out. Anna, you want to stay with Elsa?” It was barely even a question, and it probably told that Anna nodded fervently rather than giving him the sarcastic response that he sorely deserved. “Come on, Heather, we’ll head up. Could you grab that candle?” he nodded to one sitting on the table. Toothless cocked his head and murmured. “No, bud. You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He would give Heather credit for not double-checking whether he was all right with the stairs. As Gobber left by the front door, and Stoick excused himself to the back bedroom, Hiccup led Heather on up, the candle not doing much to light the room until he picked up the lantern from the table beside his bed for her to light.

“Wow…” said Heather. Hiccup was surprised by how genuine it sounded. She gently took the lantern from his hands, looked briefly at the huge slate slab that made up Toothless’s bed, then crossed straight to Hiccup’s workbench and the paper scattered across it and nailed to the wall, the pieces of wood and metal, and the stubs of candles he had neglected to clear away.

“Yeah, sorry. That was what I meant by the mess. I can tidy that up some…” he swung round, but Heather shook her head, setting the lantern down again.

“No, no, this is amazing. Is this all your work?” she picked up a sketch he had been working on for Phlegma, a framework of metal and glass based on the glasshouses that they had to the south. It was surrounded with notes on how good clean sheets could be made from the molten glass that Meatlug produced. “This looks a little like the winter gardens they have in the Southern Isles, but the glass there is much smaller.”

“Yeah, I think that Meatlug – sorry, the Gronckle who lives here – I think she could produce good glass for us. It’s a matter of making clean and smooth enough surfaces to shape it on. We were trying over the summer, but we couldn’t get a very clear result.”

“What if you didn’t shape it on anything?” said Heather. She picked up another of his sketches from the table, showing glass flowing across a surface and with a myriad of scratched out ideas beneath it, then turned it so that the glass was vertical instead. “If you can get it hot enough to smooth it vertically, could you drop it horizontally? Glassblowers use the air to cool it; what if you did the same?”

Hiccup tilted his head, then stopped and made himself look at the drawing at the angle at which Heather was holding it. “I read about glassblowing, but they’re limited by how hot they can get. Our issue is that the glass is almost _too_ pure – we need to persuade Meatlug to eat the saltcake as well, for example. But temperature certainly isn’t a problem for us. If we could get a consistent spread, maybe collect it still molten from the batches she makes,” he used his finger to shape an imaginary hopper at the top of the paper, “and then drop…” trailing off, he looked across at Heather, who did not seem to notice as she examined the paper. “How do you know about glassmaking?”

She shrugged. “We wintered on one island, and I made friends with the glassblower’s apprentice. He was full of ideas that they couldn’t do because they couldn’t get the glass hot enough.” She smiled wryly. “Trust me, there’s far stranger things that I’ve picked up a little of over the years.”

“Oh, you’ve got one of those minds as well, huh?” he chuckled. “Yeah, I think I got put to blacksmithing partially to keep my mind busy. We should talk glass in the morning, though.”

Heather laughed as well, but then sobered. “Hiccup, I know this is going to sound ungrateful…”

“We’ll get you back to your family as soon as we can,” he said, immediately. Heather looked shocked, lowered both pieces of paper back to the table. “I know that being here won’t hold a candle to being with them again. I’m sorry about the boat… we’ll do what we can to replace what was on it. But with the dragons, at least we can get you there quicker, and safely.”

“No,” said Heather, looking pained. “I… mean the opposite. I was going to ask if it could wait a while.”

“Wait?” he said, softening his voice as he saw how uncomfortable she looked. She tucked her hair behind her ear.

“It was going to be a surprise; they weren’t expecting me until spring,” she admitted. “I mean, not that I’m asking to stay that long!” she added quickly, holding up both hands. “But I don’t want them to see me… like this.”

With one hand, she rubbed the bruises around her opposite wrist, and in a heartbeat Hiccup understood. If he could have returned to his father in a state other than dirty and injured, he would have wanted to do so as well. “Of course. If they aren’t going to be panicking, then it’s best that you take your time. Feel well again.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

Heather’s smile was interrupted by a yawn, no matter that she tried to suppress it and then hid it behind her hand, and Hiccup caught himself. “Right, yes. Yes. Just let me get some clean clothes.” He made his way back over to his clothes-chest. “I’ll see if it’s all right for me to head downstairs again. I’m… sure that you can figure out the rest of this yourself.”

At least that earned him a smile. “I think I can manage a bed,” Heather said.

Hiccup grabbed fresh clothes from the chest, wrapping them up in a nightshirt and bundling them under one arm, and the roll of the tools that he used to keep his foot in good order. At the last minute, he also remembered to pick up the comb from beside his bed, even if he did end up holding it between his teeth as he started down the stairs again.

He got to the bottom before his tired brain remembered that he was supposed to have checked that Elsa did not have her shirt off. “Sorry!” he said, as he turned the corner at the bottom. The comb clattered off into some corner. “Wasn’t… thinking.”

Mercifully, Elsa was still wearing a shift, and even if Stoick would still probably disapprove it was not as if Hiccup had not seen her in her underwear or nightwear before. The neck of the shift was lower-cut, enough to show the dramatic purple-brown bruises that spread right up the centre of Elsa’s chest and crawled towards her left shoulder.

“Gods,” Hiccup said. He left the comb behind and made his way over. “How did you manage that? You got hit?”

Elsa’s eyes flickered towards his room, towards Heather, and Hiccup hurriedly sat down where he would be able to hear softer words.

“My magic,” said Elsa, once they were gathered more closely. “I used it against the Outcasts, to make a wall to stop them. It made… the sound you probably heard.”

“I presumed that was the dragon doing something,” he said.

She shook her head. “No. It was after that when she came back for me. She knocked Alvin away. But – the mirror,” she nodded to Clenchjaw’s armour, dropped behind the bench. Hiccup pulled it out into the light, and immediately saw the mirror, attached at the shoulder, cracked cleanly from side to side. Not only that, but the crack extended onto the black stone on either side, which on closer inspection he was pretty certain was obsidian. “It broke in that moment, also.”

“I think it was these stopping you,” said Hiccup. He went to tap it, but could not quite bring himself to do so. “Gothi, have you seen something like this before?”

She looked over, narrowed her eyes, and pursed her lips for a few seconds. But, finally, she gave a slow, considered nod.

“All right. We’ll leave it for now, without Gobber to explain, but it is all right if we talk to you about this in a day or two?” He waited for her nod. “Thank you.”

Gothi gestured upwards, but when Elsa went to stand shook her head and pointed to Elsa’s knees instead. Hesitantly, Elsa knelt up, looking relieved when Gothi nodded, but turned considerably more uncomfortable as Gothi shuffled round, leant over, and put her ear against Elsa’s back. Elsa stayed very still, breathing shallowly but not particularly fast, while Gothi appeared to listen for a short while and pull back again.

“Is everything all right?” said Anna. She was bouncing her knee, flicking her nails together, as she watched.

Gothi nodded, and turned Elsa by the shoulders. Elsa shuffled awkwardly round, still on her knees, then grunted with pain when Gothi’s fingers probed along the line of her breastbone. One hand flew up to cover the bruise as Gothi gestured for her to sit back down again.

“How bad is it?” Hiccup said.

As soon as Elsa averted her eyes, he had a good idea, but she swallowed, took a deep breath, and winced. “It is quite painful,” she admitted. “But if I do not move quickly, it’s not so bad.”

“Which… would be why Gothi is breaking out the white willow bark,” said Hiccup, craning his neck to see what was emerging from the basket on this occasion. “Anna,” he pointed at her, “you’re on duty to make sure Elsa doesn’t do anything too strenuous.”

Elsa gingerly pulled her tunic back on, with the occasional small wince, but Gothi did not stop her from doing so. Instead, she picked up the slate that Stoick had left, and wrote out in her own symbols and marks a couple of lines before handing it to Hiccup.

“I’ll get Gobber to translate,” he said. She patted him on the shoulder, which he supposed had to be a sign that he had done some things right. “Thank you, Gothi.”

She did not seem to notice, her eyes lingering on the obsidian-framed mirror on Clenchjaw’s armour and the faint smile on her face fading away again.


	20. Chapter 20

Once Gothi was gone, Anna tested the temperature of the two buckets of water and announced them warm enough for washing. To be quite honest, Hiccup felt grubby enough that he would probably have scrubbed himself down with snow, but he appreciated the thought and what it probably meant for Anna as well. Something that she could _do_ for them.

It was Stoick who suggested that Hiccup use the back bedroom to wash, and for all that Hiccup appreciated that stripping off in the living room would probably be an even worse idea than usual, he was still caught off-guard. Most of the times that he went into the back bedroom, it was sneaking in while his father was not in the house.

He sat down on the foot of the bed, and started with his stump. It probably deserved the first, and therefore cleanest, pass of the water. Leg still propped across his other knee, he peeled off his filthy tunic, then hesitated with it bundled up in his hands.

“Just put it on the floor, Hiccup,” said Stoick. This time, it was the gentleness in his voice that caught Hiccup the most off-guard, and he looked up in surprise. Towel in one hand – Hiccup realised sheepishly that he had been too tired to even think that far – Stoick sat down next to him on the bed, mattress bowing. “I’ll sort it out.”

It didn’t make it feel less strange to drop his dirty laundry on his father’s floor, but he did so, shivering. He lowered his leg and bent down, elbows on his knees over the water, then stopped as another wave of guilt hit him.

“Dad, I’m so sorry. I just–”

Stoick hushed him, placing a hand in the centre of his back. “It’s all right, Hiccup. You don’t need to apologise for seeking answers. There’s only one thing that I will ask.”

He waited until Hiccup looked round.

“Why did you not tell me before you left, son?”

“I just…” Hiccup shrugged, helplessly, and looked back to the water again. It was too dark to make out his reflection there. “I wanted to give you answers. Not more questions.”

For a moment, Stoick said nothing, then he patted Hiccup on the back. It was enough, and Hiccup closed his eyes, too overwhelmed to deal with leaving them open for too long. “I understand,” said Stoick.

His hand withdrew again, which Hiccup supposed was a cue to get on with his bathing. The warm water felt amazing as he scrubbed his hands and arms, getting rid of the lingering feel of fish guts, of dragon saliva, and of blood in a way that the incidental wetting of his hands while he had been cleaning had not been able to. It was going to take serious work to get his nails cleared, work that he did not feel like putting in at that time of night, but even just sloughing the dirt off his skin felt almost as good as that first touch of clean air had done.

“We’re going to need to deal with Alvin,” said Hiccup, as he managed to get both arms clean and started on the back of his neck. “I had the dragons wreck the cells, but it’s only going to be so long before they cut new ones, or work out another way to capture and use them instead.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, Hiccup,” Stoick replied.

“Dad–” Hiccup sat up straighter, ignoring the cooling water dripping down his chest. He could still feel the oppressive darkness of the cells pressing down on him, smell the sickness and dung and blood all mixed together, and through it all remembered the feeling of rage and helplessness from the Hobblegrunt, burning beneath his skin and clenching around his mind. He would _not_ let another dragon experience that.

“In the morning,” his father repeated, more firmly. “Once you have washed up, slept, and had breakfast.”

“Yes, chief,” said Hiccup, with a faint smile.

Stoick paused, and looked round, but his expression relaxed into a smile when he saw the way that Hiccup was looking at him. He took off his helmet, going to set it aside but then pausing, hands lingering on the metal. “You wash up. I’ll see if we’ve got some fish that Toothless can lay claim to.”

 

 

 

 

 

He’d thought that getting to wash, to feel clean – even if the best he had managed for his hair was dragging a wet comb through it – was the best part, but as soon as he folded himself against Toothless’s side he knew that he had been wrong. Toothless chuffed, a rumble so deep that it was barely audible but rumbled through him and therefore through Hiccup as well. Somebody, probably Stoick, had placed a few blankets and a pillow beside Toothless, and they had been there just long enough to start warming up by the time that Hiccup shoved and manipulated them into something that was half a bed and half a nest, and curled up beneath the proffered wing.

Within the warm cocoon of Toothless’s protection, he was asleep within moments, before he even had time for the weight of sleep to prove a warning. Sleep was dark and warm and welcoming, and he could hear the thump of Toothless’s heart and feel the swell of each breath. It had been too long since he had slept there.

Low voices roused him, mouth tacky and what felt like every single muscle stiff. He poked his head out from under Toothless’s wing, trying to peer around and rub his eyes at the same time, and was not entirely surprised to see that his father and Elsa were the ones to have woken before him.

“Morning,” he said, propping himself on one elbow. “At least, I’m guessing it’s still morning.”

“For a while yet,” said Stoick. Hiccup grabbed his pile of clothes and pulled them under Toothless’s wing where they too could warm up. “Gobber gave those dragons a quick check last night, and said they looked well enough for a night but would need some better care today. He’s already headed up there. I’ve turned Astrid away from the door twice now,” he continued, and Hiccup groaned, “for asking when that meeting of yours is, and there’s been four times that folks tried to check up on you. I managed to dissuade people from blowing the horn to say that you were back, but rumour will no doubt be flying by now.”

“Well, that would have been a wake-up call,” said Hiccup dryly. He shifted again, and regretted it. “Oh, gods. Everything hurts. I think my left foot hurts. I’m not sure what it’s complaining about, it wasn’t involved in this debacle.”

“Do you need some of the white willow as well?” Stoick said.

Hiccup shook his head. “No, I’ll be all right. I just wanted an opportunity to talk to someone about it who wasn’t going to think it a good thing.” He mentally weighed the options of making his way, on crutches, to the back bedroom while solely in his nightshirt, and went for wrapping himself in a blanket and poking Toothless instead. “Come on, bud. I know screens are normally fabric or wood, but I need a dragon-wing one.”

Toothless grumbled, and it might have been Hiccup’s imagination or he might have been rolling his eyes. With a barely-there swat to the dragon’s side, Hiccup finally got him to sit up, shuffle round, and allow his wing to be stretched out like a sort of screen for Hiccup to sit behind while he changed.

“Elsa has been telling me more about what you saw. We were discussing the island that you found.”

It would have been a horror in itself, had it not been overshadowed by the dragons in their cells and days in a jail of their own. Hiccup’s shiver was not much to do with the cool air of the morning as he set about dressing. “Frigg’s Hearth,” he said.

“Aye. She told me what Alvin said, that it was not the Outcasts who first attacked it. It may be that its name was not originally Frigg’s Hearth at all.”

“Well, that will make identifying it all the easier,” said Hiccup. He pulled on a shirt, wincing along the way, and set about putting on his belt with clumsy fingers. It felt as if no part of his body actually wanted to be part of the proceedings. Once he was sure that his leggings were not going to fall down, he tapped Toothless’s wing, and it was folded away again. Toothless rumbled; probably a curse on indecisive humans.

Stoick waved it away. “It is less important than the Outcasts. I need you to tell me what you saw, starting from the beginning. Any detail could be important. And in thanks,” he nodded to the fire, “the porridge has been staying hot for you.”

“Oh, I never knew how much I could miss porridge,” said Hiccup. He rolled up the blankets and his nightshirt as best he could, tucked them to the corner where they would be not be in the way, and set about levering himself upright. Something else that he had become practised at over the last year. “Though I think I’d eat sheep’s eyeballs now, I swear…”

He managed to get his crutches and foot under him and everything pointing in approximately the right direction, and made his way over to the table. The action was made only slightly more difficult by Toothless trying to walk almost on his heel, so close that his nose almost brushed against the back of Hiccup’s thigh.

“How’s Anna?” he asked, reaching the porridge.

Elsa paused in scraping the bottom of her bowl clean. “Still asleep. I do not think that she slept well last night – she was quite restless. Talking.”

“I did notice a general lack of snoring from all three usually involved,” said Hiccup. He glanced at Toothless. “Well, four. Seconds?” he added, stretching out a hand for Elsa’s bowl.

The press of the bowl into his hand was more than clear enough, and he filled it as much as he could without scalding his thumb before passing it back again. The table had been kept further from the fire before he had lost his foot, and he suspected that it had been Gobber who had been involved in the various small movements of furniture that had followed.

He ate and talked, sometimes alternately and sometimes at the same time. It was undignified even if he did hold his right hand in front of his mouth as he spoke, but he was too hungry to care and Stoick was clearly not in the mood to do so either. Elsa added details or clarifications as he started with the appearance of the Outcasts, how many there had been and their weaponry, went on to the drakkar he surmised they had stolen, and the route back to Outcast Island. Aside from occasional brief questions, Stoick simply listened, mug of water untouched in front of him while both Hiccup and Elsa made their way through cup after cup from the pitcher that had also been set on the table.

“It worries me how Alvin knows some of this,” said Stoick finally, shaking his head, as Hiccup was retrieving a second bowl of porridge. “If Johann were still here I would be asking him, but–”

“Oh, I’m willing to bet that at least some of it came from Mildew,” said Hiccup, sitting back down heavily.

“Mildew?”

“Yup. Large as life and twice as craven. Apparently he’d been feeding the Outcasts information, then took that as a place to run to over the hólmganga. Not too impressed that they had dragons as well but, hey,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “I don’t think even Alvin had too much sympathy.”

Stoick frowned. “That answers some questions, but leaves more. Firstly: how much has he told them? About Elsa, about Anna, about the dragons? About what happened with the Berserkers at the beginning of the year?”

“Mildew didn’t know about Anna,” said Hiccup quickly. “And he didn’t know most of what happened with the Berserkers.”

“Unfortunately for us, Alvin is rather smarter than Mildew,” Stoick replied. “It is _most likely_ that he will not realise who Anna is, but unfortunately we cannot rely on it. And what happened with Dagur is not what I am worried about – if Mildew has told Alvin everything, and we can only assume that he has, then our situation with the Berserkers could become worse.”

“Mildew doesn’t know about what happened on Dragon Island, though,” Elsa said, but there was still fear audible in her voice.

Stoick sighed. “No. But what he does know is that we took great pains to keep Dagur from knowing about the dragons. If Alvin attempts to leverage that–”

“–then he’d most likely find out that the Berserkers already know and are thinking of war,” said Hiccup grimly. “You think he could try for an alliance?”

“Yes, and if the Outcasts do manage to ride dragons then they will not have to wait until spring. Indeed, it would be safer for them to seek alliance during the winter – Dagur would not be able to pursue them if things go south.”

“So we need to deal with one or the other before spring,” Hiccup concluded.

“Aye. And the Outcasts will be easier. I appreciate the dragons that you bought back may not wish to return, or to fight, and that is all very well. As it stands, we have six dragons, but the weather is closing in fast and if we wish to bring ships as well–”

“Woah, woah, Dad, wait.” The spoon clattered into the bowl as Hiccup raised both of his hands. “I… all right, you may not want to hear this.” He hesitated, throat suddenly feeling as dry as if he were still in Alvin’s cells.

“Spit it out,” said Stoick, though still with some gentleness.

“When I was on Outcast Island, I spoke to Alvin. He doesn’t want _Berk_ , just land to live on. If we relocate the Outcasts to another island, with better land, where they might actually be able to farm and build fishing boats? I think he’d accept that. And surely it would be better than violence.”

He knew that the look he was giving his father was almost pleading. It was always possible that Alvin had been lying to him, of course, but he did not have the sense of lying from the man, and what he had said had in no way contradicted what Hiccup had pieced together over the years. But Stoick’s expression was too pained, and his hesitation went on for too long, for it to be anything so simple as a lie.

“From Alvin, perhaps, I might believe it,” said Stoick. “From what I gathered, his deal with Weselton was more to do with what he perceived as my passivity than with Alvin’s opinion of himself.”

The thought of calling Stoick the Vast _passive_ was not one that Hiccup had considered before, and he had to pause for a moment to turn the idea back and forth in search of a way to fit it into his head. He supposed that Alvin must have meant Stoick’s refusal to deal with Weselton and the change in ships and weaponry that it would have bought. It dawned on him that he was grimacing, and he quickly straightened his face again.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was… not something I ever expected to hear.”

Stoick snorted. “Well, be that as it may, Alvin’s exile was for treachery – well, more rightly because he was declared nithingr for failing to come to his hólmganga, but that was a matter of treachery. There are others there for more violent crimes, Hiccup.”

“Alvin caused men’s deaths.”

“Aye.” A muscle twitched in Stoick’s temple for a moment. “But he did not run them through with a blade himself. There are murderers on Outcast Island, and,” his eyes flickered almost imperceptibly towards Elsa, and his cheeks reddened, “worse.”

Given the conclusion to which Elsa had jumped about Dagur’s behaviour in the spring, he was not at all surprised to see her frown, clearly picking up on his father’s insinuation. If Alvin the Treacherous was considered peaceful among the Outcasts, Hiccup was not so sure what to think of them. Or even if he could think of them as a group at all, so much as dozens of disparate people culled from different edges of Viking society.

That was probably more accurate, if a sign that his brain was going into slightly flowery overdrive.

He rubbed his eyes, grimacing and trying to think how to respond, when a soft sound above caught his attention and he looked up sharply. “I don’t think Heather needs to hear about our politics,” he said. She probably had more than enough on her mind, more than enough to process, already. He dropped his voice to barely a murmur. “Dad, we haven’t told Heather about Elsa’s powers. It just…” he glanced over at Elsa. “Didn’t come up.”

Stoick looked at Elsa in clear surprise. “You didn’t use…”

“I couldn’t.”

“I have an idea on why, but I need to talk to Gothi.  But as for today,” he let his voice return to its normal volume, “I think that food, proper introductions to the dragons, and a bath come evening sound like a far better idea.”

“You have just had breakfast,” said Stoick.

Hiccup shrugged. “Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll have second breakfast. Morning, Heather,” he added, as Heather appeared at the top of the stairs. She was already dressed, even if her hair was tousled over her shoulder, and the shadows beneath her eyes looked less marked than before. “Come on, grab a bowl. We even have,” he finally thought to check in the ceramic pot that had sat untouched on the table, “quince preserve? Seriously? Why didn’t you point this out?” he added to his father.

“You seemed to be enjoying the plain porridge well enough,” replied Stoick, chuckling.

Heather looked, understandably, daunted at the sight of them all around the table, but food seemed to override any of her concerns and she made her way down the stairs to join them. Hiccup manoeuvred to his foot to fill another bowl for her, and Elsa slid over a spoon without even having to be asked.

There was a sound of movement from the workshop, and Elsa shot to her feet and all but bolted towards the door. It was just in time for the disorientated, sleepy sound of Anna calling for her.

“Feeling better today?” said Hiccup. It was deliberately meant to be answerable with a nod, which Heather did as she started eating in earnest. She did not even put the bowl on the table, instead holding it close to her chest. “Good to hear. We’re heading up to the academy today – check over the dragons, talk to the other riders. Although,” he grabbed a spoonful of porridge himself, and proceeded to talk through it. “I didn’t say where this meeting was taking place.”

“I told Astrid it would be at the academy, and that she should wait there,” said Stoick.

On one hand, it meant that Astrid would have stopped coming to the door so often, but on the other hand it meant getting to the academy without the ability to work Toothless’s tail himself. Hiccup looked round to where Toothless was still curled by the fire, tail tucked under his chin.

“You up to a flight, bud? We might need some help from Thornado,” he added, to his father.

“Oh, I think that I should be there for this meeting,” Stoick replied.

Hiccup mentally weighed up whether they would be able to get the Hobblegrunt to help, or whether either Toothless or Thornado would be willing to carry three of them. “We’ll figure it out,” he said aloud, and reached for the quince preserve. “After breakfast.”

 

 

 

 

 

It really was easier to look at things logically with food in the belly. The Hobblegrunt refused to even stand up for anyone except Elsa, at which point she started crooning, padded over, and ignored Elsa’s outstretched hand to rub her cheek against Elsa’s hair instead. Even Elsa looked confused, but didn’t argue, and managed to coax the dragon into allowing Anna on her back as well. Stoick took over with Toothless, and Hiccup pressed a carrot into Heather’s hand and in doing so made her Thornado’s new best friend. It still made for a bit of a procession on the way to the academy, and he was not confident enough with Thornado to land inside, but at least it was better than making his way on crutches.

“Hiccup!” It was not even a surprise that Astrid responded first, running up the slope to greet them. She looked Heather over pointedly, but did not look too confused; Gobber had probably given them a rough outline of what had happened. “You’re up!”

“Yeah, sorry it’s so late,” he said, patting Thornado in the head in thanks and then getting his crutches back into place. “Sleep and food sounded too promising. I guess that you’ve met all of the new dragons by now?”

“Well, the twins are down at the docks with the Scauldron,” said Astrid, finally looking at him again. “Ruffnut has… had some luck with it, actually. It seems to like her.”

“You know, if I had to pick one person to get along with a Scauldron, it probably would have been one of the twins,” said Hiccup, entirely honestly. “But I need someone to go get them. I only want to do this meeting once.”

“I’ll go,” Fishlegs said, joining them at the top of the ramp. “Snotlout is trying to greet that new Nightmare.”

“Is he having any luck?” Hookfang, Hiccup noted, was perched on top of the roof of the academy, although he was looking down in apparent interest.

“There’s a lot of salmon involved.”

Probably a decent amount of luck, then, knowing the average Monstrous Nightmare. “Well, that’s something. How’s Gobber?”

“Up to my elbow in Nadder,” came the shout from inside the academy.

Smiling, Hiccup picked his way down the slope, the others behind him. Fishlegs headed straight for Meatlug, while Hiccup glanced into each open-doored pen in turn to see that all of them were occupied by at least one dragon. “Well, at least it’s not up to your ears,” he teased, as he spotted Gobber with the young, wheezing Nadder, a bucket at his side and, true to his word, good arm in the Nadder’s mouth. He’d heard enough to know that there were worse places to stick an arm, as well.

“Aye, that’s fair,” said Gobber.

“How is it,” said Snotlout, emerging from one of the pens with fish scales still shimmering on his hands, “that whenever you go off somewhere, you come back with a girl,” he waved at Heather, “a Monstrous Nightmare,” a wave to the pen, “or both?”

“Good morning to you too, Snotlout,” said Hiccup, although he could feel his cheeks burning. He could not even bring himself to look at any of the people behind him. “How’s your new friend doing?”

The Nightmare grunted as Snotlout looked over at him. “He’s cool,” he said. “Bad breath, though.”

“Yeah, I’m still working on the mouth rot. Should go better now that we’re back and can get access to better herbs. I never want to see an onion again.” It was probably a good thing that nobody commented. “Heather, prepare for another wave of names, sorry about this. This is Astrid, this is Snotlout, Fishlegs was the one who flew off to get the twins, and I’ll introduce them when they get back. Everyone, this is Heather, who I’m guessing Gobber told you about before I got here.”

Snotlout was already looking mesmerised. This was going to be a long day. At least he had managed to move past his fascinations with Elsa and Anna with relative speed, even if it had annoyed Anna to no end while it had persisted. Elsa had handled the matter more graciously, by flatly refusing to acknowledge it.

“As for the dragons,” he continued, “we’ve got Hookfang on the roof, the Gronckle was Meatlug…”

“The one with the glass, right?” said Heather.

“Yup. The twins have a Zippleback named Barf and Belch, this is Stormfly the Nadder, and the other Nightmare is called Girl Hookfang for now because we don’t really have a name for her yet. Oh, yeah,” he added, as the young Nightmares emerged from under their mother’s wing and hurried towards Heather, falling over each other in their haste to investigate the new arrival. “And then there’s the tinytooths. Two Gronckles, four Nightmares, three Nadders.”

“ _Wow_ ,” said Heather. The hatchlings ran straight to her feet, chirping and jumping, scrambling over each other and sniffing her. She held up her hands out of the way, but still looked a little overwhelmed at the mass of dragon. “I, uh… all right… um…”

“Snotlout, your nieces and nephews are misbehaving,” said Hiccup dryly.

It was probably mean to make use of Snotlout’s obvious attraction to Heather, but sure enough he hurried over, blurting apologies, and tried to get hold of all of the Nightmares at once to get them out of her way. It had been hard enough when they had been just an armful; as they passed a yard, they had progressed to being a handful instead.

“Nieces and nephews?” Heather said. She stepped backwards, managing to take only one Nightmare with her. It was the blue-purple one, the colour of a sunset sky, and particularly good at doing doleful eyes. From the way that Heather’s expression softened, it was giving her exactly that look.

“Hookfang sort of adopted them, last Snoggletog,” said Hiccup.

“So you really do have a habit of collecting dragons,” Heather said. There was a hint of a tease about her voice that time, and she glanced at him for a moment before bending down and offering her hand to the Nightmare at her feet. It chirped in delight and nuzzled into her palm, then nipped at her fingers. She yelped in surprise and snatched her hand away again.

“Yeah,” said Astrid, eyeing the scene, “you might want to be _careful_ around dragons. Especially if you don’t have experience with them.”

Heather looked surprised, perhaps at the terseness of Astrid’s words, and Hiccup himself was on the verge of saying something when there was a whoop outside and a clang from above them. Cackling filtered down from the bars, and Hiccup did not even bother looking up.

“And that would be the twins,” he said. “Ruff, Tuff, come on down. Let’s get this meeting underway.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was a lot easier, and quicker, the second time around. Hiccup coaxed Skyfire into Heather’s lap, outlined everything that had happened, and did his best to keep a lid on Snotlout’s enthusiastic assertions that he would be first in line to ‘personally fry Alvin’s beard off’. Snotlout shot more than one optimistic glance in Heather’s direction as he was saying as such, but she was either looking at Skyfire or at Hiccup throughout the brief explanation.

“So let me get this straight,” said Fishlegs, finally. “Alvin definitely knows how to start to train dragons, and he managed to capture six of them before kidnapping you?”

“Yes,” said Stoick. “And – Gobber. You said you were going to talk about the Hobblegrunt?”

Having extricated himself from the Nadder, Gobber had joined the back of their small group in the middle of the story. Some of the riders were standing, some sitting; Elsa stood slightly off to the side, with Anna clinging grimly to one arm and the Hobblegrunt occasionally nudging at the other and chuffing to herself. Even Elsa did not seem to quite know what to make of it.

“Aye,” said Gobber. He leant on the table next to Hiccup; it creaked, and Hiccup hastily stood up again just in case. “Now, I know the last few new dragons you’ve found, I haven’t been around for, but I do know a bit about this one so I figured I’d take the opportunity.”

Like being at the arena again. Hiccup could not help smiling, fondly, as Gobber slipped back into the role of instructor.

“They’re generally from further north than here, and rare besides,” said Gobber. He held out a hand for the Hobblegrunt, expression more curiosity than anything else, but she cocked her head at him with yellow rippling along her fin. From the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw Fishlegs rubbing his temple and looking distinctly uncomfortable. “No? Oh, fine then, I’ll come to you.” He straightened up again and wandered round to her; she responded with a faint rumble and flickering spots of red among the yellow.

“Can anyone else hear that buzzing?” said Tuffnut, squinting at the sky above them.

“That’s the Hobblegrunt as well,” Hiccup said.

Elsa murmured something, gently stroking the Hobblegrunt’s neck, until the red faded and even the yellow became streaked through with light purple. She nodded to Gobber, who tried extending his hand again, and this time the Hobblegrunt leant closer and sniffed Gobber’s hand over, before finally deigning to nudge against it.

“Well, I heard about them when I was travelling, while I was younger.” He winked at Hiccup. “Don’t worry, I won’t emulate Johann and go off on one. Short version, even dragon hunters don’t like hunting them, because they can…” he waved his good hand vaguely. “Make you feel it in return. At least, some people.”

“That about aligns with what I saw while we were on Outcast Island,” said Hiccup. “She… projects, I guess, what she’s feeling. Or maybe what she wants you to feel, I don’t know. But it definitely affects some people more strongly than others.” He did not mention that Elsa was the one that it had struck, truly _struck_ and not just affected, as physical as any blow. “The best way I’ve found to deal with her is to think of, well, pleasant things. Pleasant feelings.”

“Like when–” Ruffnut began.

“Almost certainly not,” Hiccup said. “I mean… family. Friends. Snoggletog or birthdays or anything like that. Good memories. If you keep them at the front of your mind, I think she picks up on it. And it makes her… friendlier, I guess.”

There was the blast of a horn in the distance, not the great horn that made village-wide announcements but a personal one, and Hiccup looked round to Stoick in case there was any explanation for it. This time around, though, Stoick shrugged as well, but after a beat Snotlout seemed to wake up and jumped to his feet, clutching his helmet to his head.

“Oh, that’s for me – that’s totally for me,” he added, none-too-subtly directing his words to Heather. “My mother said that she’d give me a signal when it’s time to get more fish from the boats, I mean, she’s pretty much in charge of the fishing boats–”

“Go!” Stoick barked.

Snotlout jumped, feet coming clean off the ground, and all but fled the academy. “Hookfang! Hookfang, get down here! No, grunting at me is _not funny_!”

“Welcome to our usual state,” said Hiccup, catching Heather’s eye. She smiled, and stroked Skyfire’s head again; Skyfire snored and dribbled a little. “I’m guessing that’s our second round of fish for the day, Gobber?”

“Aye. Pretty well drank down the first lot.” Gobber watched, head cocked, as the Hobblegrunt headbutted Elsa hard enough to knock her into Anna, then actually turned to rub her fin against Elsa’s shoulder. “Fishlegs said he’d get us some good rocks for them, right, Fishlegs?”

“Yes, sir,” said Fishlegs. Gobber rolled his eyes but did not comment.

“We’re probably going to need everyone’s help in getting these guys back to health again,” Hiccup said. “They all seem to be pretty willing to befriend humans, which is…” he shrugged, “amazing, with what they’ve been through.”

“Do we get to name them?” said Tuffnut.

“Oh, and that Scauldron, by the way,” added Ruffnut, before Hiccup could say anything, “ _awesome_. Totally loves me.”

“Gotta say,” Tuffnut continued, “getting kidnapped by Alvin is _way_ cooler than what we thought.”

“What did you think?” said Hiccup warily. To his surprise, Stoick did not look angry at the interruption, and was instead rolling his eyes in the way that he used to do when faced with Hiccup saying something absurd.

Tuffnut shrugged. “That you were in hiding because of the whole cabbage thing.”

“Cabbage thing?” Hiccup couldn’t remember any of the gang having done anything with a cabbage, inappropriate or otherwise. He looked at Elsa, who spread her hands and shrugged.

“Yeah,” said Ruffnut. “The dragon dung on Mildew’s cabbage field.”

Of course, there had been _that_ cabbage thing. Hiccup winced, and looked round at his father sheepishly. “Yeah,” he admitted, “it might have been me who originally had that idea. Look, if it’s totally ruined the field or anything, then–”

“Ruined?” said Anna. “That was the biggest cabbage I’ve ever seen! Are your cabbages normally bigger here?!”

“Seeing as your friends were responsible for clearing Mildew’s fields for the late harvest, I went to them to see if they might have any ideas,” said Stoick. “Because Phlegma went to check over the land, and came back to report the largest cabbages that _she_ had ever seen either.”

Hiccup pinched the bridge of his nose, crossing his arm over his chest, and chuckled to himself. “Well,” he said finally, hearing his own voice shake with an attempt not to laugh out loud, “I guess that answers one question. So,” he looked up, “how many people do we now have vying for mucking-out duty? Or have we not let slip to the village at large the wonders of dragon dung?”

“I vote that whoever wants it has to muck out the stalls themselves,” said Astrid.

Hiccup shrugged. “Actually, that sounds pretty fair to me.”

“Well, Phlegma hasn’t told anyone so far,” said Stoick, surprise clearly written on his face. “Though I expected that you’d be the ones to handle that, with it being academy business and all.”

“I…” Hiccup trailed off. “Yeah, dung kind of does fall under our purview, doesn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t recommend using the new ones for fertiliser until you’ve got some garlic and carrots through them, though,” said Gobber. “Not sure you’d get volunteers to clean up after them, either.”

It was almost a mercy that Heather had already been helping the dragons for several days, and had started with cleaning the floors of their cells, otherwise the conversation might have been a bit much for her first actual day in the village. As it was, he gave her a sheepish smile, as if to ask what he could really do with anyone around here. She did not notice, but that was fine as well, as she scratched Skyfire gently under the chin.

Actually, it was probably for the best, to be honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snotlout might have a thing for older women.
> 
> Garlic and carrots are sort of traditional remedies that can help with worms. I have no idea what reptile dung would do to a cabbage field, but found the idea entertaining that it would put the cabbages into overdrive.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crouching filler, hidden plot. I'm impressed that y'all realised Hiccup was having relationship issues before Hiccup himself did. (And the Book of Dragons that appears in the films really is peppered with misspellings, and occasionally has a line about the wrong dragon on a given page.)

Snotlout was positively preening when he returned to the academy with three barrels of fish in a net that Hookfang promptly dropped outside the academy entrance. One of the barrels rolled down the slope while the other two just fell over, and Snotlout treated Hookfang to a barrage of hissed probably-threats while he attempted to get them back upright again.

Some of the new dragons attempted to surge towards the barrels as soon as they arrived, and Hiccup swung upright to help Gobber in keeping them back until the others bought the barrels properly into the centre of the academy and knocked them open, spilling the fish all over the floor.

“You guys have everything so _organised_ ,” said Heather, sounding both impressed and bewildered as she watched everyone work. With little more than a word here and there, they managed to keep the established dragons back so that the new ones could eat, and Fishlegs announced that he was going to get some rocks for them all. “You’ve really only been doing this for a year?”

“These guys,” Hiccup waved vaguely, “well, except me, or Elsa and Anna, they all trained together last year. So they probably would have fought together if they needed to, you know, same shieldwall and all that. I guess they just adapted that to working with the dragons instead.”

But Heather laughed. “No, I mean how much you all _know_. You just take to the dragons so naturally, it’s like you’ve been doing this all your lives.”

“Oh, right.” With a sheepish laugh in turn, Hiccup shrugged, and stroked the neck of the Nightmare hatchling that had hopped up beside him on the crate he was using as a seat. “Well, Berk probably knew more than other islands, at least about these species, you know? We had a lot more… interactions with them, even those interactions weren’t exactly…”

Heather’s expression softened. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s not you.” After everything that had happened, it just seemed a bit too new again, a bit too sharp. Hiccup took a deep breath. “Just got to see the good in it, you know? But we also have Gobber,” he nodded across to where Gobber was currently checking one of the teeth of the older Gronckle with a grim expression. “Bork was his great-great-grandfather, so he’s got a lot of the original notes that didn’t make it into the Book of Dragons. Between that and the Book of Dragons becoming more of an… establishment, I guess, than on other islands, we’ve picked up all sorts of stories about various other dragons over the years, too. Fishlegs and I are working on putting it all together into one copy.”

“Everyone has a different copy here?” She tilted her head. “You must have a pretty good rate of being able to read and write.”

“Definitely. Not that everyone _likes_ reading and writing,” he gave her a significant look, and she chuckled, “and I have seen some interesting spellings over the years, but enough to get by. We have – well, _had_ – to be able to read by the time we reached the arena, so fourteen or so, to be able to get through the Book of Dragons. After that, people don’t bother so much. I’m guessing that you…”

“Oh, yeah. My mother actually does more of it, for the trading and everything. My father just relies on his memory.” The smile became a little more crooked. “Remembering hour-long sagas is great, of course, but unfortunately he also remembers every word my mother or I say. He has some great embarrassing stories about me.”

“Yeah, my father tries to forget those, but Gobber makes sure to keep track of them. And I’m still adding to them, naturally.”

Heather made a soft, summoning sound, clicking her tongue, stroking the Nightmare behind their horns in turn. In response, the Nightmare reached up and caught hold of her shirt with their forelimbs, looking endearingly at her. “Oh! Um… hi, little one…”

“Sorry, I can take that one down, if…”

“No, it’s fine,” said Heather. She manoeuvred to perch on the corner of the crate as well, steering the Nightmare round into her lap. They followed without ever breaking their adoring look, and Hiccup smiled; in a day, Heather was getting more obedience out of the hatchling than Snotlout had managed with Hookfang in a year. “They’re so _cute_. You didn’t say anything about having hatchlings here.”

“Well, the Gronckles are the oldest. They hatched last autumn, which we think is early for them but they’ve done all right for themselves. Then I sort of accidentally bought the Nightmares and their mother back with me when I meant to just bring our dragons back at Snoggletog.” He tapped the Nightmare on the nose, to a vaguely offended look. “And then the Nadders hatched a couple of days after. They’ve grown quite a bit, actually.”

“Are you going to be a great big dragon one day?” said Heather, straight to the Nightmare. “And cause trouble for your uncle Snotlout?”

The Nightmare responded by licking her nose, and she and Hiccup both laughed.

“So, this Book of Dragons,” said Heather, settling her arms around the Nightmare to support a bit more of its weight, “every family has one?”

“Yup.”

“So – does that mean you have two? I mean, you said that Gobber had one, but I’d guess…” she nodded to Stoick, who was largely overseeing and not commenting on the scene spread out in front of him.

Hiccup nodded. “We mostly use Gobber’s, especially now Fishlegs and I have got most of the information moved into it, but my father does have one as well. The Haddock family copy, with the Haddock family misspellings.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, on one page it says that it’s the Hoddock Bok of Drogons. I don’t know if my great-grandfather just had a hard time with vowels or something.”

“When I was trying to learn a Southern Isles song, I ended up talking about a princess’s long golden hair, only I got the word just _slightly_ wrong,” Heather admitted. “And, well, it wasn’t the hair on her head.”

Hiccup’s first thought was to make sure that Ruffnut never got to learn whatever language it was that they used in the Southern Isles, even as he laughed. He had definitely made mistakes while still learning Arendellen, mostly in front of Anna if memory served, but none to quite that extent. “I can only imagine,” he said.

“I was fifteen, and it was the first island that I gave the performance while my father played.” Heather shook her head, though she still smiled in a self-deprecating sort of way. “Luckily it was late enough at night that I think people thought I was just being a bit bawdy.”

“Yeah, we don’t go for subtly bawdy on Berk.”

“For the Southern Isles, it was _scandalous_ ,” she assured him.

“Anna might enjoy talking about the Southern Isles, actually,” said Hiccup, with a nod in the appropriate direction. The Hobblegrunt had finally left Elsa alone for a while, to eat, and Anna was looking relieved to have her sister to herself. “I mean – I’d take it carefully, I haven’t spoken to her about it myself. But her fiancé is from there.”

“Oh! Is he on Berk too?”

“No, he – long story.” Hiccup shook his head. Aside from being honestly too long to repeat, it strayed too close to too many issues. Not least Elsa’s magic, which they had still not talked about. Dragons were one thing, flesh and blood like any other creature for all that some of them had uncanny abilities, but a large part of Hiccup suspected that some of those were just unexplained so far, rather than inexplicable. Magic was something else altogether. “She hasn’t been. But she probably speaks the language some, I guess. How many languages do you speak?” he cocked his head.

“Oh, only a couple. But when you say speak, it sort of depends whether you mean speaking properly, or knowing a few songs and a couple of phrases designed to either get into or out of trouble. If it’s the songs and the trouble, a few more.”

“Skald,” concluded Hiccup.

“Maybe one day.”

The Hobblegrunt chose that moment to walk back over to Elsa and regurgitate a large pile of fish at her feet, some of them bitten down into smaller pieces. She looked at Elsa steadily, while Elsa settled for looking confused, then delicately picked up a fish in her jaws and held it right in front of Elsa’s face.

“What…” said Heather, drawing out the word.

“I honestly don’t know.” Hiccup frowned, and scooped up his crutches to lever himself upright. The Hobblegrunt chuffed and tried to nudge Elsa’s face with the fish, while Elsa leant out of the way with an expression of increasing bewilderment. “Elsa?” he called, as he made his way over.

The Hobblegrunt was largely purple at the moment, with deeper indigo patches flowering and fading on her skin like drops of ink on the surface of water. She chuffed again, a drawn-out purr of a sound, and managed to butt Elsa’s shoulder with the fish in a wet slap.

Some of the others were starting to snigger, and Hiccup could not honestly blame them as Elsa backed up and the Hobblegrunt followed, apparently still trying to rub the fish over her. Even Hiccup found himself struggling to keep a straight face as Elsa good-naturedly tried to step out of range of the fish and the Hobblegrunt continued to try to push it onto her. It was a relief to be faced with a question that had so little depending on it.

Finally, with a quick glance at Anna, Elsa accepted the fish with both hands. She wiped a corner clean with one thumb, took a careful bite, and offered the fish back once again.

“Did she just…” Heather said.

“Standard practice,” Hiccup replied, without looking around. Elsa seemed very aware that she was the centre of attention in the academy as she held out the fish patiently. “We haven’t seen it in a while. Weren’t expecting it so soon, while they were still hungry, I guess.”

It had not even occurred to him, if truth be told. All of the other dragons had been at least fairly well-fed when they had started doing that, and Toothless might have done it from the beginning but he had only been down a day or so of food. Nothing, to a dragon. And naturally, as well, the next step would be for the dragon to accept the fish back and gulp down the rest of it.

Only the Hobblegrunt didn’t. She crooned again, and rubbed her chin on the top of Elsa’s head, completely ignoring the fish. Elsa frowned, and even Anna started giggling. As Elsa’s arms sagged, the Hobblegrunt finally scooped up the fish again, but it was just to nudge it against Elsa’s cheek and snuffle at her hair.

“That looks more like what Girl Hookfang does with her hatchlings,” said Snotlout, although he was squinting dubiously as he said it. “Kind of.”

“It _does_ look a bit like what Stormfly does with the tinytooths,” Astrid added. Whether her tone was to do with her general unwillingness to agree with Snotlout was hard to say. “Kind of hard to say with a human, though.”

“Congratulations,” said Gobber. “Looks like you’ve been adopted.”

As the Hobblegrunt managed to bat Elsa’s cheek with the fish again, she finally started to look a little annoyed with the matter. “A good thing that I am bathing later,” she finally said, dryly. “But I am not eating a whole raw fish.”

Hiccup looked round to see Heather still looking bewildered. “This is Berk,” he said. “Sometimes we just make it up as we go along, really.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Out!” said Anna, pushing him through the front door. “And you, Toothless!”

It was not entirely a surprise, considering the bath was now waiting in front of the fire and Hiccup had promised that Heather would be the first to get the chance to bathe, but he would have hoped that they would have had more than a minute or two after Toothless had finished heating up the water. He got out of Toothless’s way as the dragon was bundled out of the door after him, and did his best to look at Anna seriously.

“Well, what about that one?” he pointed to the Terror now draped around Anna’s shoulders. It was an improvement on the cleavage, anyway. That wasn’t such a good target to point at. “Does he have to come out?”

“ _She_ does not,” said Anna triumphantly. “As confirmed in our catch-up class with Gobber.” Her expression became more serious. “Though I really could have done without knowing what Tuffnut did, you know.”

“I think we all could have done. Can I at least have something to make notes on the Hobblegrunt?”

He had meant paper, but when she presented him with a slate and chalk just went with it. Giving the slate to Toothless, to hold in his mouth, he grabbed his cloak from just inside the door as well and made his exit, with Anna even managing to make closing a door look smug behind him.

“Come on, bud,” he said to Toothless. “Let’s go find somewhere to sit that isn’t damp.”

He strongly suspected it was going to start raining before long, and considered heading to the Great Hall before putting it aside. Too many people were likely to ask questions. Instead he caught up with Fishlegs, and they spent the slowly fading afternoon planning the pages on the Hobblegrunt and eventually getting wildly off-topic and talking about what it was going to take to get the other Gronckles back in shape instead. It was still a good feeling to talk about less crucial things, and Hiccup certainly wasn’t going to turn down the fishcakes that mysteriously appeared on the table in front of them either.

“Astrid certainly kept us on our toes while you were gone,” said Fishlegs, with an edge of hysteria that managed to suggest very eloquently how worried Astrid had been and how much she had taken it out on the others and their training. “She had us sparring.” His voice dropped. “I thought she was going to beat Snotlout into a pulp for saying that you were off doing something stupid.”

“I never thought I’d be speaking in Snotlout’s defence,” said Hiccup, “but in hindsight, I was doing something pretty stupid.” He sighed. “As long as she takes it out on me, not Snotlout…”

“Oh, Snotlout was definitely wrong. He thought that you and Elsa had run off together, to…”

Even if Fishlegs hadn’t looked at him with raised eyebrows, Hiccup would have got the message just from the tone of voice. More than a year, and Snotlout still had the wrong idea. Hiccup put his face in his hand and groaned.

“Just when I thought I should be defending him.” Shaking his head, Hiccup pulled himself to sitting upright again. “Ah, well. It’s a learning experience. I’ll talk to Astrid later.”

He _had_ been acting without particularly thinking it through. Astrid probably had a right to be angry with him for it. The thought bubbled and brewed in the back of his mind, and made it harder to concentrate on the dragons. From the corner of his eye, he could see Fishlegs giving him an increasing number of worried glances, but as it grew dark outside and rain began to fall he gave up the work for a bad job.

“Here.” He pushed the slate towards Fishlegs. “Can you keep hold of that? Don’t want it getting washed off on the way home. If you think of anything else, or any questions we can ask Gobber or anything…” he waved vaguely.

Fishlegs went to speak, then hesitated, looking uncomfortable. His mind still rattling with concerns of what everyone must have thought of him over the time he had been gone, Hiccup was not sure what he could do, and just waited to see if anything was forthcoming. Then Fishlegs shook his head, and Hiccup was not sure whether or not he ought to be relieved as he got himself back onto his crutches and headed home.

He pressed close to the front door as he rapped on it, waiting for it to crack open and Anna to peer out. “Everyone decent in there?” said Hiccup, trying to make it sound like a joke. It might have been more successful had his wet hair not been dripping in his eyes, or Toothless not been sitting in the rain looking disgruntled.

Anna glanced back over her shoulder, then smiled helplessly. “Nearly?”

“I’ll go round to the back door,” said Hiccup, pointing with his thumb. Anna mouthed ‘sorry’, and he could just about hear splashing water in the background over the sound of the rain. As the door closed, Hiccup sighed, and turned back to Toothless. “Come on, bud.”

The mud slipped under his crutches, and he could not help a few choice mutters aimed towards his leg and all of its related misbehaviour. The stones in the garden were easier to see now than they had been a year ago, though, and he picked his way across them to shoulder open the door to his father’s room. Mercifully, it was indeed open, and Hiccup did his best not to get too much mud on the floor as he made his way in.

“I’m all right,” he shouted through the door to the front room. “Give me a shout when I can come through.”

There was a bucket by the back door as well, and he hung his cloak above it. Definitely the right decision to leave the slate with Fishlegs. Hiccup perched on the clothes-chest at the foot of the bed, rubbing his temple. His head ached. There was a strange sense of detachment about everything that had happened, as though it was a long way off even though it had only been the previous day. He ran his fingers over the bruises on his wrists, not sure whether he should try to think about everything that had happened on Outcast Island.

Being in the back room again made him think of the journals, put back in place, and he glanced over to where he knew they would be. But looking in them again, so soon, felt wrong. Like he would leave dirty fingerprints on the pages that had nothing to do with the rain still dripping from his cuffs onto his hands. Hiccup swallowed, closing his eyes until he felt Toothless butt against his thigh with a huff.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, running a hand over Toothless’s head.

“All right,” said Anna, as she flung the door open. Some stray shorter hairs had escaped her twin plaits, and were starting to curl in the humidity. “We’re good. Just got to get rid of the water again.”

“That does not mean that you can drink it,” said Hiccup, wagging his finger at Toothless. Toothless ignored them, and set about nibbling at the crook of his own elbow instead. “I’ll take that as agreement. Come on.”

He went to stand, left foot first, but caught himself just in time and grabbed his crutches instead. Anna thankfully did not comment, just held the door open for him and for Toothless.

“Oh, hello,” said Hiccup, at the sight of the Terrible Terror sitting on the kitchen table. He was less surprised that she was trying to gnaw through a particularly hard-looking piece of dry fish, though. “Good to see you out and about. Female, then.” He took a seat at the corner of the table, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “She got a name yet, Anna?”

The Nadder hatchlings had apparently garnered nicknames, from Carr, but nothing that was sticking. The Nightmares, at least in Snotlout’s eyes, were Green Hookfang and their siblings, all called Hookfang and distinguished by their colours. If Hiccup did not know better, he would put it down to a lack of imagination, but as it was he suspected that Snotlout really did just like the name Hookfang that much.

“Joan,” said Anna.

“Something which I should have completely expected,” Hiccup replied, without missing a beat. “After your horse, several ducks and… what was the other one?”

“Probably a chicken or two,” said Anna. “But the horse kept the name the longest. And now,” she held out an arm, and the newly-named Joan ran up it with the piece of fish still in her mouth. “I’ve got a Joan back again.”

There was a tender edge to her voice, and Hiccup did not have to ask to know that she missed the horse she had known for so many years. He rubbed her upper arm instead, and she smiled at him before settling Joan more comfortably on her shoulder and ignoring the inevitable dribbling on her tunic.

“I was meaning to ask,” said Heather, “but that’s pretty small for a dragon, right?”

“We would guess that Joan is only three or four moons old,” said Hiccup. Heather was pink-cheeked in the warm, humid room, dressed in another fresh set of clothes and with her wet hair braided and pinned up so as to not drip on her shoulders. “Found her over the summer.”

“You have so _many_ dragons.” Heather shook her head. “And they all have their own stories.”

“Well, this is Berk. Long snowy winters with not much to do but tell stories, does tend to help,” Hiccup said. As Elsa emerged from the small bedroom, still patting dry her hair, he gave her a nod of welcome. She smiled, then it became a more mischievous grin and she threw the towel in his direction instead. “Thanks. I’ll take a hint.” The linen was already damp, but it was considerably better off than his hair, and he set about squeezing out the worst of the water. “As you can see, Heather, we’re not much of one for ceremony here. Not really big enough, to be honest.”

Heather smiled wryly. “I guessed that sometime when Anna told the chief to go away from his own house, just because I was having a bath.”

Hiccup looked at Anna, who shrugged and grinned as she flopped down into one of the chairs. “Yeah, that’s less normal, but it honestly doesn’t surprise me.”

“So… what do you normally do around here when it’s raining this hard?” said Heather.

“Oh, raining this hard is normal for Berk,” Hiccup replied, with a wave. “But personally, I’m planning an exciting night of washing Toothless’s feet, planning an apology to my father for something that I’ve done, not done, or if all else fails something that I’m going to do, because it’s always useful to have those handy, and oh, yeah,” he looked back over his shoulder at Anna. “Do we have one of these enormous cabbages?”

“There’s a couple stacked in your pantry.”

“Then I also intend to find out how large a cabbage has to be that Tuffnut thinks I would run away from it guiltily.”

“Normal Berkian activities,” Heather summarised.

“Exactly.”

 

 

 

 

 

It turned out that a cabbage large enough to run away from was nearly four feet across, and Hiccup couldn’t manage anything other than laughter at the sight of it. Gobber jokingly threatened that cabbage would be dominating their near culinary future, but there were worse things to be facing and Hiccup was still too hungry to care anyway. Dinner gave way to Heather’s interested questions, and they talked about Berk and dragons – and Berk’s increasing relationship with them – until Heather began hiding yawns behind her hand and Stoick called a firm end to the evening.

His leg felt better by the next morning, even if his muscles were stiff from not being able to stretch out during the night, and it was easier a second time around to coax Toothless into raising his wing like a sort of screen for Hiccup to dress behind. Porridge still tasted good, any sort of grain welcome after Outcast Island, and though it was spitting with rain outside it was not doing too badly. It was a lot easier getting four of them to the academy than six, even if the Hobblegrunt licked Elsa’s hair and looked disgruntled at the rope she was trying to use as a makeshift bridle.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” said Heather, as they dismounted again in the academy. Hiccup decided not to point out that she had rather been clinging to him on the way. “How did you even come up with that as an idea?”

“It was easier than clinging to his tail to work the fin,” Hiccup replied. Heather turned and stared at him, apparently lost for words.

Slipping down from the Hobblegrunt’s back, and escaping another licking attempt, Elsa walked over close enough to catch Heather’s eye and smile wryly. “No,” she said, “he is not joking.”

“On – on the tail?” said Heather.

“I did a lot of questionably sane things last summer,” Hiccup went for. “Let’s leave it at that. Anyone beat us here?”

The first indication of an answer was Silversnap and Skyfire bombing out of one of the pens at high speed, gleefully trying to barge each other out of the air. Elsa ducked without even looking round; Anna squeaked but dodged as well.

“Sorry!” called Fishlegs, hurrying out of the pen after them. “Sorry, guys. They’re a bit… excitable this morning.”

“Might be having new dragons around,” said Hiccup, with a shrug. “You know how Berk gets when we have visitors.”

“That’s true,” Fishlegs muttered, wiping his hands clean and dropping the cloth back onto the damp table that Hiccup had been perched on the previous day.

“Hey, Heather, did you get the chance to meet Fishlegs properly yesterday?”

“No,” she said. She crossed straight to Fishlegs, gave him a warm smile, and shook his hand. Fishlegs hadn’t managed to move beyond looking surprised. “Hiccup told me about you and Meatlug, though. And the hatchlings.” Her eyes followed them as they continued to chase each other around the academy, before turning back to Fishlegs. “And he tells me that you do a lot of the writing in the new Book of Dragons you’re working on.”

Fishlegs smiled shyly. “Um, yeah, I guess so. I mean, it’s a collaborative effort. Hiccup does the drawing, I do the writing, but we’re all discovering things.”

It took Hiccup a moment to be able to put a word to Fishlegs’s fumbling words and fast delivery. When he realised that the best fit would be _flustered_ , he looked away to hide his smile and started loosening the buckles on Toothless’s saddle.

“Is Snotlout bringing the fish again?” said Anna. “Well, getting his mother to, at least?”

“Yup. And I think Gobber might not have been joking when he suggested seeing whether the dragons like cabbage. We really do have an unexpected amount this autumn.”

He left the others talking among themselves and went to check on each of the new dragons in turn. They all looked to be perking up already, improved with fresh air and so much food that they actually left some behind in the barrels rather than trying to eat the wood as well. While Heather was talking to Fishlegs, he resolved to quietly spread the word that they were not speaking of Elsa’s magic. It did not come up too often when they were just talking, especially when they were just talking about dragons, but he did not want to take any risks.

The others trickled in over the course of the morning, and the weather held out, although Hiccup did jog up to the door of the academy and grab the twins to tell them rather forcibly not to mention Elsa’s magic. It seemed to hold, and the day passed relatively peacefully, apart from the general complaints about how Hiccup was holding them to the _boring_ tasks of bathing the dragons, checking their teeth, and other general upkeep. Pointing out that he had heard from Stoick how much flying they had been doing lately did not seem to sway anyone to his cause.

All the same, he kept them to quiet work for the day, and made sure not to do anything too taxing for them or, more importantly, the dragons. He let Heather have the chance, as well, to introduce herself to people rather than being introduced, and he saw her chatting to various people over their dragons over the course of the day. Only Astrid seemed to brush her off, working intently on one of Stormfly’s claws which had snagged on something, become injured, and apparently needed regular dressing. Then again, Astrid even ignored Hiccup when he came over, and barely had time for Gobber.

“Don’t take it to heart,” he said to Heather, when he caught her again. “Astrid can be kind of… intense.”

“It’s fine, really.” She smiled. “I’ve visited enough places; it’s not like I expect everybody to like me in every one of them.” She stroked Girl Hookfang’s side. “You’re all really being more than welcoming. I mean, I’m another mouth to feed and everything.”

Hiccup shook his head. “Don’t worry. Even last year, we wouldn’t have… don’t worry.” He waved the words away, and offered up his hand to be thoroughly sniffed by one of the hatchlings. “Everyone else being all right?”

“Well, when I tried to talk to Snotlout about what fish he could get, he did ask if I wanted to ‘visit the seastacks’ with him, so… do they actually exist, by the way?”

Even Anna hadn’t been awarded that high honour. Hiccup shook his head, smiling. “Yeah, they are. Although whether Snotlout meant them… I’d say you’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance.” Heather laughed. “Personally, I wouldn’t bet a tankard of ale on it, never mind anything else, but…”

“Don’t worry. I’ve met a few Snotlouts. Say, tomorrow, how about I cook for you? I do a mean clay-cooked fish.”

“Oh really?”

“I thought I saw some bundles of herbs drying in your pantry. Are they for dragon or human consumption?” she managed to make the words still sound teasing, smiling in a way that warmed her eyes. She sounded better than she had when they returned to Berk, but the bruises were still dark on her wrists and he knew as well as anyone that sometimes nightmares took longer to bubble to the surface.

“A bit of both,” Hiccup admitted. “We don’t really tend to distinguish too much.”

“I guess I should have expected that.”

“In any case, you’re free to raid them,” he said. “We don’t have anything in there that’s unique to Berk or too unusual, so I’ll trust you not to poison us.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be joining you for dinner.”

That was enough to make him laugh as well. “Well, there’s a reassurance for the ages. Although I’ll warn you now that you’ll be hard-pressed to find eel in the village – dragons really don’t like it. Long story. All the herbs we’ve got in the house are dragon-safe, though.”

Heather gave Girl Hookfang one last pat before stepping over to the door, looking out across the academy. The Hobblegrunt was once again trying to feed fish to Elsa, while Elsa attempted to gently dissuade her. “And we’re off again,” Heather muttered.

“Yeah, I really don’t know why she’s doing that…” he shook his head, joining her in the doorway. “So, dinner. You don’t have to, you know.”

“I’d actually really appreciate it. It doesn’t make up for… everything… but–”

Hiccup held up both hands. “Hey, if you want to cook for us, I don’t think anyone in our house is going to stop you.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “Although – and this will sound strange – it _does_ taste better done over an outside fire. And it means that your house doesn’t smell quite so fishy.”

“It already smells pretty dragony.” Hiccup shrugged. The worst that he could picture was Toothless searching enthusiastically for fish that weren’t there, and he did that occasionally in any case. “I mean, if you really _want_ to cook in the rain, then I won’t stop you, but…”

“Trust me, it tastes a _lot_ better from over an open fire. But thank you for your concern.”

Hiccup gave her a playful salute. “There’s a good place behind our house for a fire. I’ll show you on the way home this evening. But first,” he added, spotting a general deterioration of events in front of them, “I think I need to stop the Hobblegrunt from growling at Anna.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astrid finally has her say. The fallout is not pretty.

“I’m sorry to say this,” said Anna, “but that dragon is kind of crazy. It growls at anyone who even looks at Elsa, keeps trying to feed her, and keeps fussing with her hair.”

She paused in her attempt to comb Elsa’s freshly-washed hair, and shoved forward the plate of bread and jam that was sitting at Elsa’s side.

“Yes,” said Hiccup dryly. “I could see how that is positively insane.”

“The Hobblegrunt _did_ try to snap at Thornado today,” said Elsa more reasonably. She picked up one of the pieces of bread without particularly looking, her ability to sense food apparently not diminished in the year she had been in Berk. “He growled back. I am glad he did not roar.”

Hiccup had to admit that they probably wouldn’t have a woodshed if that were the case. “Hopefully she’ll settle down a bit, especially if she realises that you aren’t actually a hatchling.”

“Why _is_ she doing that?” said Anna, between fiddling with the thickness of Elsa’s braids. Or something of that sort, at least; hair was not exactly Hiccup’s area of expertise. “Is it because…” she trailed off, and glanced towards the front door, even though it had remained firmly closed throughout their conversation. “Is it because of your magic?”

Elsa shrugged, catching Hiccup’s eye as much as answering Anna’s question. He sighed. “Well, you did react pretty badly to that… projection thing,” Hiccup pointed out. Elsa did not look round, almost as if she knew that Anna would be giving her a horrified expression at not having been told this before. She would, of course, have been perfectly accurate to guess as such. “Maybe she’s sorry about that.”

“I still don’t know if we should tell Heather,” said Elsa, in a distraction tactic that Hiccup would have been proud of. “At first, I did not want to have to explain with the Outcasts so close, and then I was not sure it would work at all…”

“I’m pretty sure Gothi recognised those mirrors,” said Hiccup. He stole a piece of the bread and jam, avoiding Anna’s swat at his hand. “I need to ask her. I just wanted Heather settled, first. Sorry about that.”

“It is all right,” Elsa replied immediately. “She was worse off than us.”

Hiccup did not point out Elsa’s cracked ribs, quite certain that she would not appreciate it. “In any case,” he said, “it’s up to _you_ whether you want to tell her. I’ve told the rest of the gang to hold off, but it’s your choice.”

Elsa picked at her nails, frowning, though they had been clean for a while now. “When will she be going home?” she asked.

“That, I don’t know yet.” Hiccup grimaced. Heather’s bruises were fading, the bandages on her arm no longer coming away stained with blood when they were changed, but she was still jumpy. He had heard her just the past night, walking around his room, and had considered asking if she wanted to come downstairs and talk. In the end, he had decided against it. “I don’t want her to feel like I’m pushing. She’s starting to get her sense of humour back, at least.”

“Oh?” said Elsa.

“She honestly had me believing that she had a great recipe for bat stew,” said Hiccup. Heather had kept an admirably straight face for the majority of the conversation; Hiccup was certain that the request about honey had been genuine, but it had slowly devolved into teasing him. “I gave her directions to caves where she could find bats before she actually started laughing.”

Anna tried and failed to suppress her snort of laughter, while Elsa just smiled. “I wish I had seen that,” Elsa said.

“Well, I won’t lie, I’m glad that there weren’t any witnesses, to be honest.” He had no doubt that it was possible to eat bats, but Heather had been talking so enthusiastically about the recipe that he had been quite convinced that it was a delicacy on some island or another. When she had relented, though, Hiccup had assisted her in getting a good outdoor fire going, and allowed himself to be shooed away from whatever she was doing with the wild boar, honey, rockling and clay that he had seen her in possession of. He presumed it was going to be two separate dishes when done, but probably wouldn’t refuse even if it turned out to be one. As another thought occurred to him, a memory of talking about worms, he looked at Elsa sheepishly. “You… haven’t eaten bat as well, have you?”

“Oh, no.” A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “They would be far too hard to catch.”

“Yes, that is obviously what I was implying,” replied Hiccup, as Anna started to laugh, still holding onto the half of Elsa’s braid that she had finished. Probably so as not to lose her work. Elsa held out a moment longer before giggling as well, and Hiccup found himself confronted with the absurd mental image of someone leaping around trying to catch an airborne bat. For the first moment, the figure was Elsa, but he very quickly mentally replaced her with the twins and the whole idea actually seemed to make a little more sense. “I swear, if you bring me a bat for Snoggletog, there will be trouble.”

“To be fair,” said Elsa, hand over her mouth, “I think Toothless would be more likely to do that.”

He looked over at the dragon, sprawled next to the fire with his belly turned towards the heat, mouth lolling slightly open in sleep. “Yeah, you probably have a point there.”

 

 

 

 

 

The boar and the rockling did turn out to be for two separate dishes, and both were so good that Hiccup honestly could not have chosen between them. He was somewhat more surprised to see Elsa take the lead on trying to tease the recipe out of Heather, giggling and asking playful questions in between licking the honey off her fingers. Heather steadfastly but equally playfully refused to give details of exactly what she had done and what herbs she had used, and claimed that the outdoor fire had been for the secrecy of the recipe as much as for the flavour of it. Anna occasionally added her own guesses and theories, though from time to time she would also shoot worried glances at Elsa if Elsa went too long without looking around.

The separation, still weighing on her, Hiccup decided. He would probably have to pull her aside later and reassure her that Elsa was not going anywhere just because she mostly spoke to someone else at dinner. For now, he was just happy to see everyone safe and at the table, although the food _was_ particularly good.

He was still licking his own fingers clean when there was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” said Hiccup, knowing that he was closest. He swung off the bench and meandered to the door, hoping it wasn’t going to be another need for his father or anything of that sort. It would be nice to have a quiet evening.

He wasn’t sure who he might have been expecting to find at the door, but it would not have been Astrid. She was frowning, standing stiffly with her chin jutting forwards.

“Oh, hey, Astrid,” said Hiccup. He hastily wiped his hand on his side. “Is everything all right?”

“I need to talk to you,” said Astrid. The words were clipped, and her eyes were ever-so-slightly narrowed as she fixed them on him.

“Sure. Come in,” he said, stepping back. It was barely even spitting with rain, enough that there were fine stray drops glittering in Astrid’s hair but nothing more. “Sorry, we just finished dinner.”

“No. I need to talk to you _privately_.”

Something turned over uncomfortably in his stomach, but Hiccup was not sure yet what it was. He took a steadying breath and turned back to the table. “Sorry, need to go check on academy stuff. I’ll be back shortly. Toothless.” He clicked his tongue, and Toothless slipped down from the rafters to land beside them.

“Something with the dragons?” Gobber started standing up.

Hiccup did not have to look round to suspect that Astrid would not be happy with him if someone else tried to come with them. “No, just the twins,” he said quickly. He did not miss Stoick’s sigh. “I’ll sort it out. Enjoy some seconds for me.”

As he grabbed his cloak from beside the door, he heard Elsa saying something, but could not make out the words. She and Heather burst into giggles again. With a nod of his head, he sent Toothless out of the door first, and pulled the door carefully closed as he exited in turn. The wind was sharp outside, air cold enough to turn their breath into faint clouds, and he could not help wondering how long it would be until it snowed.

“All right,” he said. “Shall we go for a walk?”

Astrid hesitated, then nodded. They turned by general consensus in the direction of the woods, although Hiccup had no intention of going much further than the margins. The mud was slippery underfoot, but at least he would be more used to that this year.

“So, what’s up?” said Hiccup, as they cleared most of the houses.

There was tension in Astrid’s eyes, and in the set of her shoulders. If he looked closer in the fading evening light, he could see shadows beneath her eyes as well.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t out and about earlier, on that first day,” he said, although it was more like hazarding a guess. “We were all pretty tired, I think. But I should have let you guys know I was all right.”

“Well, you looked all right when you brought a stranger to the academy,” said Astrid, with a sharp look.

“What?” Hiccup stopped short for a moment, but when Astrid did not stop as well he had to hurry to catch back up with her. Toothless rumbled concern behind him. “Heather? We weren’t in a state for introductions on the first night.”

Either they were far enough into the trees, or Astrid’s temper got the better of her, as she finally stopped and turned to face Hiccup properly. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to just _you_ ,” she said. “Has she actually left your side in the last three days?”

Frowning, Hiccup shrugged. “We’ve all been at the academy for most of the time,” he said. “If you’d said, I would have come round that first afternoon. Anna kicked us all out so that Heather could have a proper hot bath; Fishlegs and I were working on the Book.”

He wasn’t sure why the words were coming out so defensively. Wasn’t sure why he _felt_ defensive, returning to that feeling of _smallness_ in his chest that had usually been accompanied by doing something wrong, or getting something wrong. Even when she was not clearly frowning, the corners of Astrid’s lips seemed turned down, and there was almost a sadness in her eyes.

“Hiccup,” she said finally, “who _is_ she?”

“Wait, what?”

“This Heather. Who is she? Some random person from Outcast Island’s cells, and you just bring her back to Berk and straight into the Academy?”

Hiccup looked at her blankly. Astrid had been there when he had explained what had happened; she had been standing at the back of the group, watching intently. He remembered seeing her, thinking that she was watching as if they were back in the training ring. It took a moment for indignation to rise through the confusion, and he felt himself frown, shoulders stiffening. “She helped us to escape. She got _cut_ helping us escape.”

“She got cut because Alvin wanted you to talk,” Astrid said. “And she did what anyone would do in hope of surviving. There’s nothing special about it.”

He felt as much as heard the noise that he made, anger choking in his throat. One hand curled into a fist. “You weren’t there,” he spat, and almost regretted it when Astrid’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t, though, not quite. Not when it was true. “During the day, we were shovelling sh–” he caught himself; “ _dung_ and mopping pus out of infected wounds. In the night, it was shackles in the cells. Two cups of water and some dried fish and cheese a day.”

What little colour there had been drained from Astrid’s cheeks, but her eyes stayed hard. “And doing what you said would have been her only way to get out! Any fool could have seen that!”

“So, what? I shouldn’t have bought her to Berk?”

“There’s a difference between bringing her to Berk and bringing her to the _academy_.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes, unable to help looking away for a moment. “She’d already seen it, Astrid. She was there while I showed _Alvin_ how to befriend the dragons. You really think that bringing her to the academy for a couple of days is going to make a difference?”

“I don’t…” Astrid shook her head and huffed. “I don’t _know_ , Hiccup. But you should have at least discussed it with the academy, and not just turned up with her one day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, next time I get kidnapped I’ll be sure to run my strategy by you all before being grateful to someone that helped me escape.”

“Oh, un _twist_ your _britches_.” Astrid looked at him with outright disdain, and it actually shocked Hiccup for a moment to see the expression. On her, at least. He was used to getting that sort of look, before the Red Death, from just about anyone else in the village. Astrid had been one of few people who tended to be fairly neutral about him, something which he had always suspected was due to the fact that they mostly interacted in the smithy. “Would it really have been that unthinkable to have a meeting with us after you get back, but before you bought her to the academy?”

“What did you think she was going to do?” said Hiccup. “No, really? What the Thor did you think that she was going to do? _Do_ you think that she’s going to do?”

There was part of him watching, in disbelief, as the words spilled out of his mouth and he glared at Astrid. It felt vicious, sounded vicious, even to his own ears. But he could feel the terrible, tumultuous fear of escaping, the dragons taking hits and hitting back. Even now, he could only hope that nobody had been killed in the fight.

“We – don’t – know,” Astrid hissed back. There was something unsettled in her gaze, shock perhaps, and between her words Astrid wore a faint frown. Any other day, he would have wished that he could reach out and brush away the little crease between her eyebrows, but he was still too angry. “What island she comes from, what _they_ think of dragons–”

“Her father’s a skald, not that it’s really that much of our business,” said Hiccup.

Astrid glared. “Really? It’s not that much of our business where our knowledge about dragons ends up? What if her family just happen to stop off at Berserker Island in the spring? Let slip a few tips on how to train dragons?”

“Do you seriously think that she’s going to do that?” said Hiccup incredulously. He pointed back towards the house. “You didn’t see her, in that _moment_ that she first met a dragon.” He could still remember it, that slow smile, the light in her eyes and the glow in her expression that had transcended those dark and filthy cells. “She took to them a damn sight faster than any of you here on Berk did.”

The glare turned into a disbelieving scoff. “Really?” said Astrid. “You’re going to throw that at us? Do you expect me to apologise for trying to protect my home?” she swept with an arm to encompass the faint sounds and smell of Berk, visible in flickers beyond the trees. “Or have you forgotten that you were pretty damn keen to kill dragons yourself?”

Hiccup bit the inside of his lip, so hard that he tasted blood. Because it was true, that was the worst part, and he should not have said it at all. But the words had spilled forth before he could even stop them, riding the crest of that incredible moment when Heather had taken the Nadder’s jaw in her hands.

“And,” Astrid added, while Hiccup was still fighting the urge not to spit out the blood again, “you don’t _know_ what experience she’d had with dragons before. Us, on Berk?” Another impatient gesture. “We grew up with each other. If there was anyone with secrets, it was _you_ , sneaking off and doing things behind–”

“ _Sneaking off_ –” Hiccup started angrily.

“Behind your father’s back, never mind behind ours. So what do you know about her?”

“We spent several days locked in the same cell, Astrid, I’d hardly call her a bloody stranger any more.”

“Really, Hiccup? Because I would. Because I’d say that all you know about her is what she’s told you, and you have no idea whether that’s true or not. Have you met this travelling skald father of hers?”

“I told you where–”

She did not even give him the chance to finish. Instead of pallor, there was red returning to her cheeks, but it was high and angry on her cheekbones and her eyes were shining just too much in the evening gloom. “Where she _said_ , Hiccup. It’s all _said_. What do you actually _know_?”

“That she helped with the dragons, and that she helped us escape,” he snapped. “And yes, before you ask, that _is_ enough for me.”

“Enough to risk all of Berk?”

“Risking Berk?” He looked at her incredulously, honestly wondering what she thought Heather might be doing. Planning to burn Berk to the ground? Assassinate Stoick? Steal the secrets of dragonriding and spread them across the archipelago?

Although, if he were honest, Hiccup would far rather see the whole archipelago riding dragons than fighting them. It would still save the lives of dragons.

Hiccup shook his head. “Why have you already decided to distrust her?”

“Why have _you_ already decided to let her in on all of our secrets?” Astrid shot back. “Is it that intoxicating to have been right this last year? Or have you just gotten hooked on saving people?”

For a moment, Hiccup could not manage anything more than an indignant splutter. But there was horror among it, and that creeping smallness once again. Was that what Astrid thought of him, what she saw when she looked at him? Someone who would risk Berk for the sake of being right, someone who wanted to be a saviour more than they wanted to actually help the _people_ involved? The heat of his anger faded, replaced by a cold disappointment, and he stopped raising his voice.

“So that’s it,” he said. “You think I’d rather risk Berk than risk being wrong.”

“Well apparently, you’d rather risk Berk than risk being cautious,” said Astrid. “Tell me, is it _that good_ to be a hero?”

He’d told her before that he wasn’t trying to be a hero. “Have you considered that maybe _you’re_ the one who can’t bear to be wrong here?” Hiccup shot back. His head hurt, and his heart was pounding in his chest as if he had been sprinting. “That just maybe you thought Heather was a risk, but now you can’t admit that she isn’t?”

It was Astrid’s turn to scoff.

“No, no,” Hiccup pointed a finger at her. “You spent fourteen years being the best of our generation, being right about everything, coming from the Hoffersons yet being better than the son of the chief.”

Astrid’s eyes went wide, and he knew that the words had cut. Perhaps he should not have mentioned her family. But it was just a sign of how much better than him she had been; if she had been Stoick’s daughter, people would have been looking forward to making her chief, and if Hiccup had been a Hofferson he would have only dug the family deeper into shame. She had overcome what the village thought of her family, while Hiccup had nearly undone everything his forefathers had created.

“So just maybe,” he pushed on, “it’s rankling that I’ve finally turned out to have a talent in something.”

“You think this is about the dragon training?” said Astrid, with a wave to Toothless.

“Oh, sorry,” he made an exaggerated flicking gesture with both hands. “A talent in a second thing. I forgot that it was so unbelievable that I might actually be able to befriend dragons _and_ have a semblance of judge of character. Two things would just be excessive for me.”

Astrid shook her head, looking at him in disbelief and something worryingly like disgust. “Wow. I can’t decide if I should tell you to get over yourself, or to stop wallowing in self-pity. Either way, maybe you should put aside your ego and think about the rest of Berk.”

“Maybe you should put aside your paranoia and accept that maybe the whole world isn’t our enemy. Dragons aren’t what we thought,” he said. Toothless murmured and cocked his head at the pair of them. “Wildlings aren’t what we thought. So maybe we shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions about one person.”

“Dragons. Wildlings.” Astrid nodded. “I get it. She’s another rescue case for you. You’ve been right the first two times, risking your own hide, so now you’re going to risk the whole village’s on this one.”

“Oh, come _on_.”

“She is a stranger! If she weren’t some girl a couple of years older than us, would you even be so trusting?”

“Are–” despite it all, he was almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “Are you seriously suggesting–”

“Well, let’s see, she’s clearly got Snotlout by the balls–”

“Oh, that’s just _Snotlout_.”

“She had Fishlegs falling over himself to talk about the hatchlings while she stood there and batted her eyelashes at him–”

“How is that even–”

But Astrid was counting on her fingers, ignoring Hiccup’s attempts at interruption. “And you she doesn’t even need to flirt with, because you invited her into your house and into the academy straight off.”

Once again, Hiccup could not manage anything but to shake his head. They both knew full well that Snotlout thought with his prick rather than his brain all too often, and Hiccup had seen how flustered Fishlegs was, but he wasn’t even sure that he would categorise what Heather had been doing as deliberate flirting. He didn’t know her well enough to say whether that was her usual demeanour, the effect accidental, or not. Being locked in a stinking, damp cell with someone for several days didn’t exactly give a baseline for their normal behaviour.

“Something is wrong, Hiccup,” Astrid said, “and you are ignoring every worrying sign, and putting Berk at risk, because you can’t stand to be wrong.”

“No, Astrid,” he said, firmly and firing her name right back at her. “You are overreacting. Heather is not some sort of threat to Berk, and you are doing both her and me a disservice by saying so.”

“You are just invested in being right.”

There was a lump in his throat as he kept his expression stern. “No, I’m invested in doing the right thing. This conversation is over.”

He expected Astrid to protest. Instead she looked him over one last time, eyes cold and tired and just slightly sad. “Apparently so.”

Before he could work out whether the knot in his chest was regret, Astrid turned on her heel and walked away into the darkness of the forest. In no time at all, he had lost sight of her, and he looked to Toothless in despair.

“Sorry you had to see that, bud.”

Toothless huffed. And, as if to add insult to injury, stinging cold rain began to fall.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup leant against one of the pine trees for a while, sheltered from the worst of the rain by its branches, and waited to see if Astrid would return. From the start, he was pretty sure that she would not, but he could not bring himself to leave just in case he turned out to be wrong.

“See, Astrid?” he muttered to the cold air. “I know I can be wrong about things.”

Was that what she thought of him? That all he wanted was to be a hero, and worse that he was willing to put people at risk in order to do so.

The thought stole in guiltily; last summer, that had perhaps not been all that wrong. He _had_ wanted to be a hero, to live up to people’s expectations of his family, to prove himself at least as good as them if not better. But it had still only been himself that he had been putting on the line, getting into dangerous situations to prove that he could get himself out again.

For the most part, at least.

He tried not to think too hard about how many times he had screwed up, and how many people he probably _had_ endangered in his desperation to prove himself. At least he was fairly sure that he had not managed to get anyone hurt. Not badly enough to get told about it, anyway.

The thoughts were nagging at him, nipping at him. The number of things that he had done wrong, just how damn useless he had been over the years. Worse than useless; a hindrance.

He took a deep breath, and tried to breathe out the thoughts with the lungful of air. It wasn’t wholly successful. It was becoming clear, however, that Astrid really had walked away and was not going to be coming back to continue or fix their argument. Finally admitting defeating, Hiccup levered himself upright and started the trudge back uphill towards his house.

The rain only increased as he made his way up, and he left more than a few scrapes in the mud by the time that he got to the front door and held it open for Toothless to go in ahead. He dripped in afterwards, soaked to the skin in a fine example of Berk’s general conditions.

“That was quick,” said Stoick.

Perhaps it had been. Hiccup blinked, trying for a moment to work out whether it was the case, then gave up and put it aside. “Well, I’m getting better at telling the twins to clean up their own messes,” he said glibly. Hopefully the twins would not get into any trouble, but he was fairly sure that if they did it would only be because they had been caught doing something that deserved it. “If you’ll excuse me,” he leant against the wall, took off his boot, and followed it with one impressively dry sock. It was probably the only dry item of clothing he had left on. “I am going to go and get changed.”

He waved for Toothless to stay downstairs and excused himself to his room, towelling down and changing quickly and in stiff movements. Everything felt a little out of time, like he was looking at a series of images rather than a cleanly moving world. Shaking his head, Hiccup looked around his room. It looked just like he had left it, apart from the papers on his desk being piled up a little more tidily. He paused, and frowned, then forced Astrid’s accusations and narrowed eyes out of his mind. He did not want secrets any more, and unlike last summer there was nothing in his notes and sketches that would be in any way incriminating.

He returned to the table as plates were being pushed down to one end, and Anna was trying without much success to stop Joan from climbing about in them. All eyes seemed to be on the Terror’s antics, until Stoick looked round mildly. Hiccup forced a smile onto his face.

“Less damp,” he reported, returning to the table. “More human.”

Gobber used his hook to lift up the side of Hiccup’s hair, as Hiccup made faint noises of protest and tried to pull away. “Nope,” said Gobber firmly. “No gills appearing yet.”

“Honestly, they’d be pretty useful on Berk,” said Hiccup. Anna set Joan down facing away from the plates, stroked her until she seemed inclined to sit still, and sat back. Joan immediately wheeled round and bounded towards the plates again with a chirp of delight. “And I think that she thinks that’s a game.”

“I noticed,” Anna huffed. She arranged Joan back around her neck again, and the dragon curled against her warm skin.

“So,” said Hiccup, catching Elsa’s eye. “Did you have any luck with the recipe?”

Elsa looked sideways at Heather, who grinned conspiratorially. The two of them started giggling again, and Hiccup just shook his head.

“Never mind, I think I can guess.” It was easy to feel almost comfortable, back around the table with them all. He spied half a roll of bread left uneaten and grabbed it, largely for something for his hands to do as he pulled off a piece and started flattening it between his fingers. “Please, just tell me whether or not there was any bat in it.”

For a split second, Heather looked alarmed, then smiled again. “Oh, no, that was teasing,” she said quickly. Probably a good thing, considering the shocked look on Stoick’s face at the word _bat_.

“Honestly,” said Gobber, “I think that was good enough to not mind.”

They fell into talking about nothing much, although Hiccup found himself listening for snippets about Heather’s past and feeling uncomfortable with himself for doing so. He did not stop her from launching into a string of entertaining stories, though, albeit ones less bawdy than the one she had mentioned while they had been at the academy. Visiting Corona as a child, and seeing the city so rich that they used their expensive purple dye for chalk drawings on the streets that only lasted a day. An unusually early start to the storm season getting them trapped on Rockland for a winter, and her father constructing long ballads in the chief’s honour in order to pay their way through the season. She talked about the Southern Isles, but about her father’s performance at the wedding of one of the daughters of the King as part of ‘exotic’ northern entertainment.

Anna perked up at the mention of the Southern Isles, listening intently as Heather described the celebration. Weddings went on for three days, and Heather’s father had been present only on the third, but it sounded as if it had still been as large a celebration as the whole of Berk managed for Snoggletog.

“Do you know which princes she’s related to?” said Anna. “I mean, apart from all of them, on her father’s side, obviously.”

Elsa was frowning, and Hiccup cleared his throat. “The King of the Southern Isles has had different wives over the years,” he said in a low voice. As he saw some understanding, he decided to leave out for now that some of those wives had overlapped in time. It had started as a legitimisation of mistresses, from what he gathered, but had ended up merely introducing another tier of them instead. The Queen, the King’s wives, and the King’s mistresses had just ended up with more knives to put to each other’s throats.

Heather wrinkled her nose. “My grasp on the language wasn’t too good. She had two older boys there who acted like brothers, though, so I’d guess it was those two. She was about my age, they looked maybe twenty, or a little older? Red hair. The younger one had sideburns you could have used for a sundial, I swear.”

If Hiccup was the only one who saw the way that Anna stiffened and swallowed hard, then he would eat Toothless’s saddle. Elsa was definitely looking at her sister with concern, and probably the only reason that Heather had not noticed was that Elsa was in the way. “Did you catch her married name?” said Hiccup quickly, to draw the attention back to himself. “Who knows, if her family likes exotic northern entertainment then maybe they’d want to trade with our charming island. Johann’s probably got his route plotted out, but if he hears there’s a market then he might be persuaded.”

“Johann?” said Heather, mercifully keeping her eyes on him and not on Anna.

“Our main trader,” Hiccup said. The piece of bread was so solid between his hands it was becoming formless, and when he finally thought to put it in his mouth it was like chewing on a chip of wood. He swallowed it anyway, and plucked off another piece. “You’ve probably guessed that Berk is nothing extraordinary.”

This time, Heather’s laugh was incredulous, and she nodded to Toothless who had climbed back into the rafters and was padding back and forth as if deciding where to perch. “I think that counts as extraordinary.”

Despite himself, Hiccup grinned. “All right. _Was_ nothing extraordinary, before the dragons. We do some trade, but were not exactly a merchant hub.” He shrugged. Heather had doubtless seen enough islands to have identified that about Berk straight away, and a flick of a glance in his father’s direction showed that Stoick did not look in the least bit worried about what Hiccup was saying either. “Johann is our most reliable visitor. First when the season opens, last before it closes. But the man can sell a story.” He popped the second piece of bread into his mouth before it became inedible. “Give him some necklaces of dragon scales, he’ll probably come up with a story about how they’re ancient Viking protections against harm and sell them like fresh yak milk in the Southern Isles.”

“Sounds like someone who would be interesting to meet.”

“For the first half a dozen longwinded tales,” said Gobber.

Heather raised an eyebrow at him, still smiling. “Yeah,” Hiccup said, “he… likes the sound of his own voice. Although you never know, he might know some good songs or stories for your father’s knowledge. Come spring, we’ll see if we can talk him onto a dragon to come visit you.” The thought of Johann on dragonback was definitely a novel one. “Unless he already visits the island on his yearly rounds. What’s it called, again?”

“Oh,” Heather looked surprised, then tucked her hair back behind her ear. “Actually, I don’t think you’ve asked before. It’s a tiny place, smaller than Berk,” she added, with a vague wave. “Knucklebone Knoll. I doubt he bothers with it.”

Hiccup exchanged a look with Stoick, who shrugged. Not a large enough island to get involved in any conflicts, then; there were quite a number of them, scattered around the archipelago. Even some islands larger than Berk would keep their heads down and their neutrality intact; it was just that Berk was particularly stubborn, loudmouthed and bellicose.

Those were the words Hiccup would have used, at least. Probably not what his father would have chosen.

“With Johann, you honestly never know,” said Hiccup. “I swear he makes some of the names up. I mean, Innsmouth?” he looked to Gobber, who had been present for that particular story. “There’s no way that’s a real place. Although maybe I should check, if what he says about the unique dragon there is true.”

“Well, as you said,” Gobber replied. “The man can sell a story. And fake Coronan purple skivvies,” he added, at more of a mutter.

Hiccup smiled, although it felt as if it was not reaching his eyes properly. Like they were the part of his expression that he just could not control. But as they moved seamlessly into Gobber talking about his exploits from his travelling days, before settling down in Berk, Hiccup was fairly sure that nobody noticed. He kept his fingers busy with the bread, tearing it into small pieces but making sure not to destroy them before trying to eat them, and watched Heather strike up a camaraderie of travellers with Gobber as easily as she had struck up one of dragon-friends with Fishlegs.

No, he decided, safe behind his bread and carefully held smile. Heather was just good at getting along with people, and had a varied enough life experience to find similar ground. And he was glad to see it, instead of the fear under Alvin’s hold.

He caught himself before crushing the remaining bread in his hand, and tried to put Astrid’s angry look out of his mind. He was not prepared to back down from Heather’s innocence for whatever unlikely idea Astrid had dreamed up. He could see for himself that she was, very clearly, a good person; see it when she laughed at Gobber’s jokes, when she revealed that she had kept back a spare rockling for Toothless, and when she promised to tell Elsa about the dinner, leant in as if to whisper in her ear, and then said sotto voce ' _It’s a secret_ ’ only for Elsa to dissolve into laughter once again.

The dragons had trusted her. And Hiccup trusted them more than he trusted most humans; he would take their word for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not going to Corona at any point in the series, but I couldn't resist the reference. Yes, Innsmouth is Lovecraft, but we're not going there either!


	23. Chapter 23

Curling up tightly had proved to leave his left leg stiff in the morning, and Hiccup compromised by stretching out his blankets next to Toothless instead. He still woke up with Toothless’s wing extended just enough to brush his hip, but had to admit that he was considerably less sore.

There were a few comfortable minutes, in the warmth of his blankets and the banked fire, with the familiar sound of Toothless’s breathing and the duet of snores from the back bedroom, before he remembered his argument with Astrid and his stomach turned to a lead weight. He closed his eyes again and rested one hand over them, hoping that a few deep breaths would make it feel a little less like he had done something monumentally stupid.

It didn’t.

He was still sure that he was in the right, but just one of the problems with his overactive brain – as Gobber would term it – was his tendency to overthink things. Hiccup knew that he did. But he also knew that he overthought his tendency to overthink, and tended to tie himself in knots as a result. But he had _seen_ Heather around dragons, heard her speak, and even if he didn’t know everything about her he was sure that she was a good person.

It dawned on him slowly that there was no break in the pattern of snoring, and peering at the door and windows suggested that there was not even a glimmer of light outside. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and tried to judge how far the fire had burnt down, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was still night.

With a sigh, Hiccup was about to lie down again when he heard a shuffle of movement from upstairs, the scrape of a chair leg against the floor in the lull of snoring. He pushed aside his blankets, grabbed a sock to put on beneath his prosthetic, and got to his feet. He was wearing leggings with his nightshirt, considering he had been sleeping in the front room, and just pulled his belt back on as he made his way over to the foot of the stairs.

Toothless raised his head and murred a query, but Hiccup waved for him to stay still. With his eyes fully awake, he could see the faint candlelight coming from the upstairs room, and as he trotted up the stairs he rapped on the wall in the hope that it would announce his presence.

It must have failed; he reached the top of the stairs in time to see Heather, candle in hand and still dressed, looking at one of the pieces of parchment on the edge of his workbench. Hiccup cleared his throat, and she jumped, looking round with wide eyes.

“Hey,” said Hiccup. “Sorry. Didn’t meant to startle you.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Heather quickly. She indicated the parchment. “I noticed that you’d written something about the glass, that we talked about.”

He waved it away casually, but there was an almost vicious bite to it in his mind. A determination to let Heather prove herself. “It’s fine. You’ve got things tidier than I have, to be honest. If you spot any more of my ideas where you can fill in the gaps, feel free.”

“Really?”

Hiccup shrugged. Even Heather seemed surprised at his words, and he knew that he might have been more inclined to tidy up his notes and put them safely out of sight at any other time. “How are you holding up?” he said. The blankets on the bed were rumpled, but Heather was still dressed, and the candle in her hand was largely burned down. “Can’t sleep?”

“I was having nightmares,” Heather admitted. She set down the candle, and sank into the chair at the workbench. Not wanting to hover, Hiccup perched on his clothes-chest. “I’ve never really seen a fight before… I mean, anything worse than a scuffle between a couple of people. Certainly not with dragons.”

“They can be pretty overwhelming,” Hiccup said. True, he had been more worried _about_ the dragons than anything else, except for trying to keep Elsa and Heather safe. He had been relieved that Heather had mostly been uninvolved. “My usual suggestion for nightmares would be sleeping next to a dragon, but I guess that might not help so much in this case.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Elsa realised it first. But it works.” Hiccup shrugged. If he thought too much about it, he supposed it was not much of a variation on a child climbing into their parent’s bed. The warmth, the larger body, the feeling of protection. But for Hiccup, it was far more the feeling of someone having his back, and of knowing that he was not alone.

“I just…” With a sigh, Heather shook her head. She wrapped her arms around herself, then pulled them away again and pushed up her sleeve to look at the bandages there. “I just want to see my parents again,” she said, more quietly.

The bruises on her wrists were still dark purple-brown, but Hiccup was fairly sure that they were at least not getting any darker. They could only fade. “We can head out to Knucklebone Knoll as soon as you’re ready,” said Hiccup. “I mean, I’d offer to go now, but I don’t think you’d appreciate it.” It earnt him a chuckle, at least. Think about it tomorrow, if you want?” He paused, hoping that Heather would nod, but her gaze remained on her wrists. “I should probably give you fair warning that there’ll be a village meeting come new moon, though. About Alvin.”

At that, Heather’s head snapped up. Her jaw was clenched, cheeks pale.

“You won’t have to be there,” said Hiccup quickly, raising a hand, “even if you’re still here. I’ll be able to do the talking.”

If she did come, he realised, she would have to have been told about Elsa’s magic. There was no way that the entire island could be told to not raise it, and the likelihood was that it would come up as part of the discussion. But that was something that he would have to discuss with Elsa as well, in the morning.

“Thank you.” Heather tried to stifle a yawn, and Hiccup took it as a cue to get back to his feet.

“I’ll let you sleep. Think about dragons, maybe you’ll dream of them.”

“Maybe.” When Hiccup raised a hand in something approaching a goodnight, she raised one in return, and he turned back towards the stairs. “Hiccup,” Heather added suddenly.

He stopped at the top of the stairs, turning to face her. “Yes?”

Her smile faltered, and she paused for a moment before she spoke. “You’ve really been too kind to me. I’m just a stranger.”

“Almost everyone starts off as strangers,” Hiccup replied. “Sleep well, Heather.”

“I’ll try,” she said quietly.

 

 

 

 

 

He did not sleep particularly well for the rest of the night, despite Toothless’s warm frame beside him, and got up as soon as one set of snores from the back bedroom ceased. He was fairly sure that it was his father who had awoken. Hiccup was dressed and building up the fire by the time that Stoick emerged and looked at him with surprise.

“Morning, Dad,” said Hiccup, trying to keep his voice warm.

“Morning. Everything all right?”

Hiccup waved vaguely, before realising that he was also waving a piece of wood around. “Thought I heard thunder. Might have been Toothless’s stomach.”

It seemed to be enough to soothe Stoick’s thoughts, as his frown faded. “Aye, might have been. You going to be up at the academy today? If not, I’ve got a meeting with Jorgenson, going to be looking over the weapons stores. You’re welcome to join us.”

He had a suspicion that he knew why. Hiccup swallowed, throat feeling thick. “We were going to be meeting up, but… not for anything important. I can keep it to a short meeting and then come and join you.”

Stoick nodded. “That sounds good.”

Part of being the Chief’s son. It still felt alien, a matter for the village growing out of what had been a matter for their family, but he could see why it was necessary. Hiccup turned back to building up the fire, not really feeling the heat. It was an easy rhythm to fall into, slowly coaxing more heat and light from the flames, as Stoick busied himself with something that Hiccup could hear behind him.

“Elsa. Elsa!”

Anna’s shout startled him from his work, and he was on his feet before any thought had even made its way into his head. He bolted towards the door to their room as there were thumps from inside, heart in his mouth. Was Elsa missing? Was–

“Anna, it’s all right. Anna. Anna, wake up!” said Elsa, almost desperately.

Hiccup managed to stop himself from grabbing the handle and throwing the door open, but still slammed into the wood. “Anna? Elsa? Are you all right?”

There was a vague mumble, Arendellen-sounding and not really words, and Elsa making hushing sounds. “It is all right,” Elsa said, after a moment. Her voice softened. “It is all right.”

Apparently nobody was sleeping too well. Hiccup clenched one hand into a fist, but simply rested it against the door with a sigh. He leant his forehead against the wood for a breath, then peeled himself away and looked round to see Stoick, looking uncertain, a few paces away.

“Are they…” Stoick said.

“It’s fine.” Hiccup rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Sleeptalking, sounds like. They’re fine.”

Stoick looked ruefully at the door, a father’s look, but hesitated. His brow furrowed, and Hiccup stepped away, doing his best to sidle, to free Stoick’s path to the door. After a moment of quiet, though, Stoick shook his head and turned back away again.

Hiccup backed away, and looked upwards to see Heather looking down cautiously from the top of the steps. He gave her a wave and a half-smile, hopefully enough to reassure her. At the very least, it was enough for her to stop frowning, nod, and step out of his view again.

“Great day,” Hiccup muttered to himself. He might as well make a start on breakfast, in the hope that not everything was going to go terribly wrong. It sounded as if Gobber had woken up as well. “Really great day.”

 

 

 

 

 

It did not fully surprise him when Astrid did not come to the academy. Her choice of messenger, though, was a little galling.

“Astrid said that she and Runa are going to be running the traplines today,” said Snotlout. “So all right, we’re a person down, but that does leave us with an even number of people so if we need to go in pairs, then we can totally go in pairs.”

Hiccup would have wondered whether dunking Snotlout in cold water would help at all, but considering he had been known to wash himself in Berk’s stinging cold rain, it would probably not. The best that he could do was not put them into pairs, or at least not put Snotlout into any of the pairs which he doubtless wanted to be in.

He did not miss Heather’s wince, either. However much she suspected, it was probably too much.

“Well, the dragons are looking much better,” said Hiccup. “We’ll have a quick look at them all, and see if we can get them to go for a gentle flight. Start building up muscle again.” He eyed the Hobblegrunt, who was trying to shove her head in between Elsa and Anna no matter how firmly Elsa tried to push her away. “And work off some of that excess energy. Come on, let’s get started.”

It was only spitting with rain, but there were rumbles of thunder in the distance and dark clouds coming in from the west. The storm might swing north and miss them, but Hiccup did not want to take any chances on it.

“How come you never bring back any Zipplebacks?” said Tuffnut, bringing Hiccup’s attention back from the stormclouds.

“What?”

“You didn’t bring back any Zipplebacks.” Tuffnut scratched his chin. “You’ve got Gronckles, Nadders, Nightmares… no Zipplebacks.”

“Alvin didn’t have any.”

Tuffnut gave him a look of disappointment. Well, there was a familiar expression. “Well you, young man,” he said, as sternly as he was apparently capable of, “should be make sure to find one in future.”

Hiccup started towards the cells. “I will do my best to find you a Zippleback come Snoggletog.”

“Well, you’d better,” Tuffnut replied, walking backwards to keep pace with him, “otherwise we shall – yurk!” He tripped over a bucket that had been left in the centre of the academy, to a bark of laughter from Ruffnut’s vague direction.

“And back to normal,” Hiccup muttered to himself.

He’d known dragons were hardy, of course, just from what Vikings had seen of then. But he had perhaps not appreciated quite how hardy until he was faced with their injured and sick; even the Nadder that had been wheezing was pulling through, breath starting to clear. None of them seemed to harbour the least bit of ill-will towards humans, either, although that part Hiccup had been more aware of. Just the fact that they willingly slept in the pens – even with the doors open – had to be a sign of that.

They were getting quicker to check over as their health improved, and most of the quick round that Hiccup did was spent on greeting them, not anything medically necessary. Perhaps it was a different sort of necessary to let the old Gronckle huff and snort into his shirt, though, or scratch the Nightmare under the chin. At least the chin-scratching had the advantage of getting the Nightmare to open his mouth, so Hiccup could check the wounds there without being too much of a nuisance.

“You good with the Gronckles, Fishlegs?” said Hiccup, straightening up from checking Toothless’s saddle. From the corner of his eye, he watched Snotlout do his best to keep Girl Hookfang and the new Nightmare away from the barrels of fish that would be waiting for when they got back.

Fishlegs nodded. “I’ll be gentle with them.”

The rest of the dragons would be all right with a brisker flight, although Toothless would still be holding back. Stormfly would have needed to, had Astrid been with them. But the Gronckles could do with a gentler pace, especially with the older one among them.

“Thank you,” said Hiccup. It was a relief to have someone on his side right now.

He did not manage to get the dragons into the air for long, however, before rain set in. A glance to the west made it clear that the storm was headed straight for them, and the rumbles of thunder were growing louder and longer. The other riders would be used to the poor weather, but Heather’s arms tightened around Hiccup’s waist as the rain began to fall.

“Come on,” he shouted, with a broad wave to catch everyone’s attention. “Let’s head back!”

There were some groans and complaints, but everyone obediently turned back to the academy, landing just as the rain turned heavier. Fishlegs joined them not much later, probably having seen them come in to land, and the Gronckles sniffed at the puddles and rivulets of water running into the academy. The Nightmares were already splashing around in the mud, the young male from Outcast Island almost rolling onto his side. For a moment, Hiccup managed to smile at them.

“Snotlout!” he shouted. Even just outside the academy, the noise of the rain against its surfaces grew louder. “Can you be in charge of feeding them today?”

It was a shameless use of Snotlout’s vanity, of his desire to be _in charge_ of anything, but Hiccup needed to get back to the village.

“What?” Snotlout looked surprised, then smoothed his expression out to confidence. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Totally. I mean, I’ve got this under control.” He leant against Hookfang’s back. “I’ve totally got this, but I mean, I’m taking volunteers if anyone wants to learn about this vital part of dragon-keeping.”

The look in Heather’s direction was about as shameless as Hiccup’s ploy had been, and Hiccup was not surprised to see Heather looking amused but not at all tempted.

“I’ve got a meeting with my father,” he said. “Fishlegs, you’ve got the rocks down for the Gronckles?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Thank you all, guys, but I really need to be…” he was cut off by the sound of a growling dragon, as if today could not get worse. Worse, he realised a heartbeat later, was that it was the Hobblegrunt. He turned around to see Elsa standing between the Hobblegrunt and Anna, one hand extended towards the dragon. “Elsa?”

The Hobblegrunt growled again, and Elsa wavered, might have fallen altogether had Anna not grabbed her by the arm. Sweat was beading on her forehead, and red was spreading and flowering across the Hobblegrunt’s wide fin.

“Snotlout, guys, see if you can get the others eating,” he called over his shoulder, jogging towards the Hobblegrunt. As he did so, the dragon took another step forwards, head snaking low and the depth of the red intensifying. The temperature of the air dropped around them, and Hiccup thought that he saw ice glittering on Elsa’s fingertips. He quickened his pace to her side.

As he reached her, the Hobblegrunt snarled, and he turned in surprise to see that her eyes were fixed on him and she was baring her teeth. He backed away from Elsa a couple of paces, but did not dare move further as Elsa paled, shaking.

He could feel the anger hitting him in waves, laced through with the sentiment of _mine_. The urge to fight rushed through him, the urge to _bite_ and to _claw_ , and he clenched his teeth until it hurt to remind himself that he was a human, that this dragon-urge to battle was not his at all. Anna was looking green around the gills, but kept her hands on Elsa’s shoulders, all but propping her up.

“What happened?” said Hiccup.

Anna spared only one glance for her sister; it was quite clear that Elsa was in no state to answer. “I took Elsa’s arm,” she said. “I don’t think she appreciates…” she trailed off with a whimper, squeezing her eyes closed. When she opened them again, a tear trickled down her right cheek.

“All right. Hobblegrunt,” Hiccup drew himself up as much as he could, although he was quite aware that had never been his strong suit. “This needs to stop.”

He stepped in front of Elsa, and the world imploded.

At least, that was sort of what it felt like. It also sort of felt like someone was screaming, right in his ear, but instead of hearing the sound he was feeling it reverberating in his bones. He might have made a choking sound; he could not hear anything, but his throat felt tight and it was hard to breathe. He did his best to meet the Hobblegrunt’s eyes, her yellow eyes fixed on him with pupils narrowed to slits.

His vision became a tunnel, blurring and turning red-grey around the edges. The Hobblegrunt’s fury burred in his skull and throbbed in his ears, filled his throat with screams that it hurt to hold back. He tasted blood in his mouth, and was not sure whether it was real or not. His hands curled into fists, and he forced them open again, muscles tightening and twinging beneath his skin.

The air about them became colder still, shocking against his eyes and lips. Hiccup pulled himself upright, locked his elbow and looked at the Hobblegrunt. “No,” he said.

The Hobblegrunt growled. Hiccup’s hands spasmed, trying to curl into fists again. He managed to drag in a breath and force his palm flat.

“Anna, move Elsa away,” he said.

He could hardly hear his own voice. He could not look behind him to see them move, but knew when they did from the twitch of the Hobblegrunt’s nose, snout trying to swing round and track after them. He stepped back in front of her, the silent scream in his head intensifying, as she showed her teeth.

“No,” Hiccup said, once again. He dragged through the cramped and thickened thoughts that were still his own and clung on to thoughts of Elsa, of her smiling, of what it felt like to wrap his arms around her. He could not manage clear ideas, or memories, just impressions and snapshots of moments, but he held tightly to them and pushed back with those warm thoughts until he felt a little less fogged. It dawned on him that he was breathing hard, as if he had been running, and his hand was starting to shake as well. “She is not yours,” he told the Hobblegrunt. “She does not _belong_ to you. She is free, as you are.”

The reds still swirled, and the Hobblegrunt half-lunged towards him, as if she were going to snap at his hand or arm. Hiccup stood his ground, held his gaze, and finally the red began to fade and the throbbing in his ears seemed to decrease.

“If you can’t handle Berk,” he continued, “you are free to leave.”

The words left him before he really thought about it, or about how absurd it was to be talking to a dragon that might vaguely understand words like _fish_ or _no_ but would certainly not understand concepts like _free to leave_. He thought of flying, the rush of the air, and it seemed a little easier to breathe as he did so.

Finally, with another growl to herself, the Hobblegrunt swung her head away and stomped off towards some of the open ground and the muddy puddles scattered over it. Hiccup waited long enough to be sure that his legs were not shaking before turning to see Elsa and Anna leaning on the wooden fence at the edge of the academy. The next-closest person was Heather, at the foot of the ramp and looking up with concern.

“Are you all right?” he said to them. Anna looked up grimly, shaking her head, but Elsa nodded.

“I think so.”

“Elsa–” Anna began.

“I will be,” Elsa said. She had one hand over the centre of her chest, lines of pain across her brow.

After the meeting about the storehouses, Hiccup decided to find Elsa and go to see Gothi. It was no longer something that could wait. “We’ll get Gothi to have a look at that,” he said, with a meaningful look. Elsa nodded again. “I’ll see if Fishlegs will let us borrow Meatlug for the flight back. She can stay out here,” he finished, with a slightly darker look at the Hobblegrunt. The Hobblegrunt paused in her examination of a tree to turn and glare at him in return.

Heather picked her way back up the slope. She had pulled her borrowed cloak tight around her, but the rain was still dripping from her hair and down her cheeks. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she said. She sounded as if she already knew the answer.

“No, but thank you,” Elsa said, before Hiccup could get there. “I will… wait here.”

“Sure. I’ll just be a moment,” he said, and picked his way down the slope amid trickling water. The drains were getting blocked with leaves again, but were just about working for the time being. He could clear them out tomorrow.

Strange, how even while supposedly running the academy, he ended up unclogging the drains all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

Fishlegs was more than happy to let them borrow Meatlug, and Hiccup sent her back again as soon as they were all safely back in the village. Promising Elsa and Anna that he would speak to them again once he had finished talking to his father, and suggesting that Elsa rest, he hurried in the direction of the armoury and was not in the least bit surprised to find his father, Gobber, Spitelout and Silent Sven all in attendance.

“Hiccup,” said Spitelout, as he approached it. Hiccup managed not to be offended by how surprised he sounded.

“Hi, all,” he went for instead. The words fell limply from his lips. At least inside the armoury he could push his hair back out of his face, and mostly have it stay there. “Sorry for the delay. Academy business.”

“Don’t worry,” said Stoick immediately. “We’ve just been taking stock of what we have. Thought it was more than last year, but,” he gestured to nothing in particular, “Gobber says it’s more that he’s got no backlog needing mending.”

“Just a couple of maces that got taken to a rockface when people got annoyed,” said Spitelout.

Better that than to each other, Hiccup supposed. He took a deep breath; somewhere in the dim night, a terrible thought had occurred to him. “Spitelout, there’s something you should know. Mildew is on Outcast Island.” Spitelout’s eyes went wide, but Hiccup was already looking to Gobber and his father as well. “Alvin says that Mildew was feeding him information. What risk is there that someone else is doing the same?”

“I think we’d notice someone else being as outspoken as Mildew,” said Spitelout, a hint of scoffing in his tone.

Hiccup pressed his lips together, but it was Stoick who got to a reply first. “Which is exactly why, if Alvin has someone else here, they will be harder to identify. It would suit Alvin’s tactics to draw our attention with Mildew while using someone else, as well.”

“Short of feeding people false information, I don’t know how we could catch anyone out,” said Hiccup.

Stoick huffed, stroking the plaits in his beard. “Or without knowing what Alvin knows. For now, I suggest that anything between the war council and ourselves stays private. I don’t much want to put a guard on the armoury, though; we haven’t done that in many years.”

“We could ask the folks who live opposite,” said Gobber, with a nod back out the door behind them. The rain was still growing heavier, but the houses opposite were still visible through the grey haze. The return gaze would be just as clear; at the very least, it would be possible to see if _someone_ was entering the armoury.

“The other issue, loath as I am to raise it,” Stoick continued, “is that a lot of our weapons are still meant for fighting dragons. We have those meant for fighting men, but they are fewer in number. Gobber, could we make new weapons with what we have?”

“There’s plenty of iron melted down from the old dragon-traps that Hiccup and his lot retrieved in the spring,” Gobber said. “Not the best quality, but it’ll work. Most of it is broken-down by now, but…” he shrugged. “It’s harder to work the forge alone. Dogsbreath knows what he’s doing in theory, but…”

He trailed off with a snort. Hiccup knew that any time they spent together in the smithy had remained tense, even as Dogsbreath got used to having dragons around. Although Dogsbreath was plenty glad for the fighting to be finished, he was not so keen on having them as a part of village life, especially as Hiccup kept bringing more back. The latest arrivals would probably not have improved his mood either.

“Could get yourself a new lad to help out,” said Spitelout, with a shrug. Gobber gave him a withering look that said an awful lot about how much actual training and practice it took to be able to help out, and Hiccup raised his eyebrows. “Just to clean up, fetch and carry, that sort of thing. Got to be better than no-one at all.”

On that, at least, he had a point. “Or a lass,” Hiccup added, with a shrug. He thought of how he and Astrid had joked about Anna fast becoming someone who would fit in at the forge, and smiled, but it was accompanied by a pang. He was going to have to do an awful lot of fixing before he was able to speak that comfortably and casually with Astrid again. “Like I did when I started.”

Gobber rolled his jaw, clearly thinking. A helper was no replacement for an experienced helper, but if he had managed to corral Hiccup into being useful then it was far from beyond him.

“Worst happens,” said Hiccup, “we can scout out some other islands, see if there’s someone coming to the end of their apprenticeship who wants to move on.” That was how Gobber had got his start on Berk, he knew. “We’ve got the capacity for travel, now.”

“Eh, I can probably find someone who can handle a broom,” Gobber said. “And once we’ve given fair warning about Alvin, I expect that Dogsbreath and I will be better able to get working on things.”

“I can still come and help if–”

Gobber cut him off with a gesture of his hook. “You’re needed at that academy, lad. Dogsbreath can do most of what you did, even if he hasn’t the same brains, and most anyone can sweep a floor and fill water in exchange for a bit of work for their family. But there’s none other can run that academy of yours, especially if you’re training people again this winter.”

“You still want that?” Hiccup looked across at his father. His stomach sunk further at the thought of having to do the lessons again, this time without Gobber or Astrid to back him up.

Stoick sighed. “I think we need to go ahead with it. Not the same island this time, though.”

“Well, if there hasn’t been another ice bridge, I’d actually recommend it,” Hiccup admitted. “The dragons there… they like us, and they’ll remember that. I don’t want to force those ones from Outcast Island under a saddle,” he added, with more of a warning coming into his voice. Although they were recovering fast, they were still far from well, and he wanted to give them several moons if he could. That was without even trying to figure out what was going on in the Hobblegrunt’s brain. “And at least now we know there are Speedstingers on the northern island.”

Still looking unconvinced, Stoick made a vague sound. “We’ll talk about that nearer the time. Jorgenson, you wanted this?”

Oh, gods. Hiccup thought the colour might drain from his face at the idea of teaching Spitelout among his first group of adults, but did his best not to let it show in his expression.

Unfortunately for him, Spitelout nodded. “My boy seems to get something out of being around that beast, and he’s been sharpening up on his training. Down south, they think they’re fancy with the warhorses.” He grinned widely. “Let’s show them dragons!”

“We’re not going south,” said Stoick, quicker than even Hiccup would have expected. Of course, Spitelout knew more about Arendelle than did most of Berk, but Hiccup did not think that was what he meant.

Even Spitelout looked surprised at Stoick’s vehemence, and fell silent. Stoick sighed.

“Our concern is for now Alvin, and come spring Dagur and the Berserkers.”

“Aye, chief,” said Spitelout. From him, it was practically a public declaration of love and loyalty.

Stoick’s frown did not fade, however, and his hand was still at his beard. Hiccup would have said that he was more concerned about the quiet than he ever had been about Stoick’s bellowing.

It was Gobber who cleared his throat and broke the tense silence. “Right, then. We’ve got something of a plan. Hiccup, you come down to the smithy with me, let’s make sure you’ve haven’t left anything in odd corners.”

He was pretty sure that he hadn’t, but to be fair could not deny it. More than that, he had to appreciate it when Gobber slung an arm across his shoulders and gave him a gentle, fond shake.

“Well, there’s few corners odder than the smithy,” he said.

“When you worked there, at least,” Gobber retorted, without missing a beat. “Come on, let’s go clear up my workbenches, let your father and Spitelout handle things here.”

To be honest, that was the most inviting suggestion that Hiccup had heard for quite some time.


	24. Chapter 24

“All right,” said Hiccup, as they reached the forge. Gobber left the windows closed rather than let in the rain, and Hiccup set about lighting the first of the lamps. “I think I removed everything, but there probably are some odd bits around here somewhere…”

“Hiccup,” Gobber said, gently.

Hiccup recognised the tone and turned to face him, shoulders already slumping. He knew that Stoick struggled to talk to him, although that had become better in the last year or so; to tell the truth, he had not exactly done well about talking to Stoick. But Gobber had found and, more importantly, maintained mutual ground as Hiccup had been growing up.

He didn’t bother saying anything. Gobber already knew. Expression softening, Gobber stepped over, took the lamp from Hiccup’s hand, and set it on the table beside them. “What’s up, lad?”

With a sigh, Hiccup leant against the workbench. It was familiar, solid, covered with burns and nicks that just told of how long and how well it had served. “It’s been a difficult moon,” he said.

It was an understatement, and they both knew it. The deaths of Venomspur and the man whose name they had never known, the buckle, false hope and betrayal, being captive and having to fight his way out. Gobber put his right hand on Hiccup’s shoulder, and Hiccup couldn’t help but be relieved by the weight of it.

“I know,” said Gobber. “But there’s something happened yesterday that’s making it worse. When you came back from dealing with those twins last night. Only,” he looked at Hiccup more gravely, “I didn’t hear any news of what they’d been up to when I was about this morning. What happened?”

Of all the village, Gobber had been the first one that he had really spoken to about things. The only one, for a very long time; there had been years, after all, before Elsa or Toothless or everything changing. Hiccup grimaced against the immediate urge to tell Gobber everything.

“Don’t think you’re too big for me to pick you up and set you on that table until you tell me,” Gobber warned.

He had been known to do it. Or to pick Hiccup up by the scruff of his neck and simply dangle him until he admitted whatever it was that he had done, that he had not done, or that was bothering him. Despite himself, Hiccup smiled.

“All right,” he said. Gobber, at least, could wheedle things out of him. “I… the twins didn’t do anything. Astrid and I had an argument, over the academy.”

Close enough to the truth, but it still tasted like a lie. He wrapped his hands around the edge of the table, cold old wood comforting after he had spent so many years working around it. There had been times when the smithy had felt more like home than the house had.

Gobber stayed silent.

“It was…” Hiccup caught himself, and shook his head. “It doesn’t even matter what it was about, I guess.”

“First argument,” said Gobber.

“It’s not–!” Hiccup started to snap, feeling his cheeks grow hot, then caught Gobber’s sympathetic and vaguely amused expression. He reigned in his anger, if not the sentiment. “It’s not like that. Not some…” he struggled for the words, and could only think of an Arendellen phrase which translated clumsily into Northur. “Some _lover’s tiff_. It was about the academy. Not over _at_ the academy, just over the academy.”

His words were becoming faster, he could feel it, more agitated. Toothless rumbled and padded over from the doorway, rubbing his cheek against Hiccup’s hip. Hiccup’s hand strayed down, and he cradled the back of the dragon’s head.

“It’s still your first argument, with someone who isn’t your father or me,” Gobber pointed out. He let his hand drop from Hiccup’s shoulder, eyes lingering on Toothless, then set about scratching his ear with the tip of his hook. “About those new dragons.”

Hiccup shook his head. “About…”

He could not bring himself to tell Gobber about Astrid’s wild suspicions, not while Heather was in their house, cooking for their table, sharing their food.

“It – it really doesn’t matter,” he said again. “It’s not because of what it’s about. But we were fighting and then she just… she just walked off. And I don’t know what to do.”

“About the academy, or about Astrid?”

“Either,” said Hiccup. “Both!” He threw up his hands, then rubbed his eyes instead. “Astrid was my… my second voice. The other kids didn’t come to the academy for any respect for _me_ , they came because they respect _her_. And if she disagrees with me…” he rested one hand on Toothless’s head again. “She’s the one who had their support. Always has been.”

“She was,” said Gobber. Hiccup looked up, frowning. “You think they still turn up for her? You think those three kids were answering to her this year, or that Spitelout wants her to teach him about dragons?” Gobber chuckled. “No, lad. That academy is yours, in all but name.”

It was a strange feeling. A year ago, two years ago, Hiccup would have expected any comment like that to make him feel proud, delighted even. Like he was finally part of the village and achieving even a fragment of what his family’s past indicated he should. Instead, it felt like a pressure on his spine and a weight in his hands, a responsibility that he did not at all feel ready for.

Apparently older meant more foolish. Hiccup probably should have anticipated that, instead of just making sarcastic mental comments about it.

“Not that I know what I’m doing with it,” Hiccup murmured.

“You think I knew what I was doing, the first time I found myself running this smithy?” said Gobber. He knocked his hook against the anvil with a ring of metal. “And you should have seen your father when he first became chief!”

“Really?” Having known his father for all of his life, Hiccup found it rather difficult to imagine.

Gobber chuckled. “Oh, aye. Like a newborn yak on a frozen lake.”

“I find it hard to picture my father on any sort of frozen lake.”

“My point is, lad,” said Gobber, becoming more serious again and bending over slightly so that he could look Hiccup straight in the eye. “Nothing important ever comes easy. You’ll get there.”

Stoick had said things that were not all that different, back in the summer after everything that had happened in Arendelle. They had been a lot easier to hear sitting in the sunlight and looking over the village than they were in the smithy in the pouring rain, even if they were no more and no less true than they had been then.

“Besides,” Gobber continued, “why do you think I’m not part of the war council?”

That was not the direction that Hiccup had expected. He blinked a few times, probably looking a bit foolish, and frowned, Gobber straightened up again, crossing his right arm across his chest and then tucking his left more carefully into place to accommodate the hook.

“Because your family hasn’t been on Berk since the beginning?” Hiccup guessed.

Gobber was wearing the smile that he usually saved for when he had managed to solve an argument between Hiccup and Stoick by winning it himself. “Nope,” he said. “Family goes back to Bork, remember? Just because my mother moved off doesn’t mean I can’t claim that. But no, I’m there as the smith, not as part of the council proper, and we all know it.”

“Odd numbers?” said Hiccup. “So there isn’t a tie in votes?”

“Nice thought, but nope,” said Gobber. Hiccup sighed, not sure how long this was going to tarry, and to judge by the twitch of his smile Gobber decided to take pity on him. “Because when it comes to you, I might be able to disagree with your father, but when it comes to Berk…” he shrugged. “I’m not so good at disagreeing with the Chief. Phlegma and Spitelout, they can do that – disagree, and do it sensibly, not just argue and make trouble.”

“So you’re saying that I should be grateful that Astrid is capable of arguing with me.”

“I know, it sounds hard. But one day, you’ll appreciate it.”

“Well, speaking of things that I’m coming to appreciate,” said Hiccup, “I need to speak to Gothi. Could you come and translate for us?”

“Fine, change the subject,” Gobber replied, not even trying for subtlety. To be honest, Hiccup was in the mood to appreciate that just at the moment. “But yes, I can do that. This afternoon, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah. I just need to grab Elsa and Anna, and the armour that we bought back. Well, that Elsa bought back.” He had honestly not thought to attempt to take it, even if he had been close enough to do so. Toothless would probably have made enough of a way through.

Gobber nodded. “Go on, then. I’ll meet you at the foot of the spire.”

At least there was something that he could do, Hiccup supposed.

 

 

 

 

 

Anna had less of a commentary on the walk up the spire this time around, although that may have been to do with her knowing who lived at the top of it or the fact that she had admitted life in Berk to be significantly more ‘physical’ than life in Arendelle. In any case, they were all able to reach the top more or less in one piece, even if the rain had helped to make the route more treacherous. Toothless, who had this time refused to be dissuaded from coming with them, bought up the rear and on reaching the plateau marched straight over to the edge to peer down at the view.

“You should really persuade her to put in a landing area,” said Anna. She was less out of breath than last time. “Just… somewhere.”

“I don’t think her plants would appreciate that,” Hiccup replied.

He was still considering whether he should be the one to knock on the door when Gobber walked straight over and rapped with his hook. “Gothi! Got you some visitors.”

There was a moment of quiet, broken only by the shifting sound of metal as Elsa adjusted the armour that she had insisted on carrying, before the door opened. Gothi eyeballed them all, shook her head to herself, then stood back and left the door open for them.

“All right, even _I_ can guess that one,” said Anna. She looped her hand through Elsa’s arm, though who took more support from it was hard for Hiccup to guess.

Hiccup whistled for Toothless’s attention, then pointed out a corner in the lee of the building which would make a good enough place to settle. Padding over, Toothless gave it a good sniff, nuzzling at the longer grass and poking at a couple of scraggly dandelions still hanging on. As soon as Hiccup started towards the door after Elsa and Anna, however, Toothless immediately hurried back over, grumbling to himself.

“No, bud, come on. I need you to stay outside.”

If Gothi’s house was anything like as crowded and full as it had been during the summer, there would be no room for Toothless. Even in the rafters, which were his usual haunt at home when the floor became too busy for his taste, would be full of drying herbs and food.

Toothless hrumphed.

“Trust me, Toothless. Way too many strong smells in there. You wait for us out here.” Hiccup pointed back at the corner again. This time with a baleful look, Toothless did a fine job of slinking back and flopping back down in the indicated place, the very picture of wounded pride. Hiccup sighed. “Please, don’t you start.”

With a huff, Toothless flipped up his tail so that it covered his eyes, and Hiccup gave up. He ducked into the low doorway and hurried out before Gobber’s horned helmet gave him any pointed reminders. This time, Elsa and Anna had already taken up seats on the stairs, while Gothi cleared the top of the same crate which Gobber had sat on last time. Hiccup opted for the stairs, a couple of steps down from the others, and patted Elsa’s knee gently. It did not do anything to ease the tension in her eyes.

Gothi seemingly ignored them for a few moments, settling down the fire and whatever was bubbling in the cauldron hanging over it, but then she calmly retrieved her calfskin and sand, set it down right in front of Gobber, and started writing.

“I’ve been wondering since you came back when you would come to ask about the mirror.” Gobber paused, glancing at Gothi as if expecting to feel the end of her staff, then at the three of them on the stairs. “Mirror?”

Elsa straightened up again, the armour still in her arms, and descended the stairs. Following Gothi’s gesture, she lay it on the table, unrolling the glittering scales to reveal the round mirror set at the shoulder. Gothi crossed back to it, waved Elsa away perhaps as an acknowledgement of the flighty air about her, and looked at it for a long, silent while.

Hiccup had taken the opportunity to look more closely. The mirror was as perfectly round and as good-quality as anything he had ever seen, or at least would have been were it not for the single crack that ran across it. It was set into a nine-sided slab of obsidian, the edges ground down so that they would not cut but without losing the shape, into which had been painstakingly carved runes and symbols that were not quite _right_.

Without ever quite touching the mirror or its frame, Gothi traced its outline with her fingers. She frowned, but there was a sadness about it, and eventually she curled her fingers up tightly and returned to her calfskin. She wiped it clean, hesitated, but then began to write in slower and harder strokes than usual. Gobber’s tone softened as he read it.

“Yes. I know this work. It is made to reflect magic back, three times as strong as when it was cast. It is called a…” Gobber paused. “A what now?”

Gothi did not even bother looking at him, just scrubbed out her work and wrote in runes, something that Hiccup had never seen her do before.

“Volitmaglaer,” said Gobber. He frowned at Gothi, who glanced up just long enough to catch his eye and nod.

With a half-hearted shrug, Gobber continued. “It is a witches’ mirror, in old words. The carvings are old runes, like the grandfathers of the ones we use now, carved into pure obsidian and… touched? Rubbed?” It probably spoke of Gothi’s agitation that she did not bother to correct him. “With a mixture of the blood of…” he trailed off and grimaced. “I’m not saying the mixture.”

Gothi looked at him derisively, and added more symbols.

“Aye, I’m sure those two do know about that stuff, but I’m not reading it aloud whether Hiccup’s here or not!”

With a shake of her head, Gothi swept the words clean and wrote afresh. Gobber mumbled something to himself and set about continuing to read.

“Once it is ready, it is meant to be a protection against magic, by reflecting it back. I would guess that it took Elsa’s and turned it against her.”

As Gothi stopped, she looked straight at Elsa, who swallowed and shifted in her place. “Yes,” said Elsa, after a moment. “When I tried to use my magic, or when the Hobblegrunt would have made my magic happen, instead I felt… cold.” She put one hand over the centre of her chest, while Anna clung to the other. “And pain. When we were escaping, I forced the magic. I think that was when the mirror cracked. I know it was when my ribs did.”

“You didn’t say that the Ho–” Anna began, but Elsa squeezed her hand and silenced her with a glance. Just a couple of steps below and inches away, Hiccup still felt like he was a great distance from them.

“Alvin had several,” said Hiccup. “This one was from a woman named Clenchjaw. I think she must be one of his high-level people. Trusted, if Alvin trusts anyone. This must be why he wanted to get Johann to bring him mirrors.”

Mirrors for the volitmaglaer. Oleander oil to poison Toothless. Red stones for the buckle. It all made far too much sense in hindsight.

“Where would he learn about it?” said Anna. “I’ve never heard of anything like that, and…” she hesitated, and glanced around with shame in her eyes. “And the Silver Priests did talk to me about different sorts of magic.”

Gothi’s staff tapped against the floor, her lips pursed. It made Hiccup feel as uneasy as anything he had ever seen from his father; at least he had occasionally known Stoick to stop and think about something. Gothi never seemed to hesitate, never seemed to have to think about things; Hiccup had seen her reach into wounds jetting blood and somehow stop the pulsing, seen her order thrashing men knocked out without a pause. There was not an injury that he knew of that had made her hesitate; Hoark’s crushed leg, which had nearly been removed, had not even stopped her.

And she did not want to write whatever was coming next.

His instinct was to tell her that she did not have to speak, to say whatever it was that was clearly hurting her, but he knew that it would be a lie. However Alvin knew about the volitmaglaer, it could well be a dangerous source of other knowledge as well.

Gobber cleared his throat before reading out what Gothi finally wrote.

“Alvin’s mother was called Excellinor. She was fascinated with magic and read many books about it, although she did not have magic of her own. Not like Elsa. This is the sort of thing which she would know about, and may have taught Alvin.”

“Is she still alive?” said Anna. Elsa seemed unable to speak, and Hiccup’s tongue seemed to have turned to lead in his mouth. “She’d have to be…”

“Alvin is Stoick’s age,” said Gobber, without waiting for Gothi to write anything. “It’d be unusual, but not impossible.”

Hiccup swallowed, then with some difficulty swallowed again and forced himself to speak. “How do you know about her?” he said.

Gothi swept the calfskin clean with a slower motion of her foot than usual, then simply caught Gobber’s eye and nodded. He cast his eyes to the floor, squared his shoulders, and then looked up again.

“Excellinor is Gothi’s daughter,” he said.

Hiccup snatched his breath in between his teeth, eyes going wide. Gothi turned her back on them and returned to look at the volitmaglaer on the stolen armour. For a moment, Hiccup could not even form clear thoughts, everything too busy tumbling over each other, until he managed to drag together the realisation that yes, he had heard what he thought he had heard. Gothi’s daughter, a student of magic. Her _grandson_ , Alvin the Treacherous.

It was true that after a hólmganga, even if one person did not appear and was called nithingr, the family were not counted to carry the same stain. They were not expected to leave, and though they might be treated coldly for a while, it was no more a social banishment than the treatment of the Hoffersons had been over the shame of ‘Fearless’ Finn. But he would never have thought that _Gothi_ , to whom everyone deferred and who had seen a fair number of the village into the world, might have been so affected.

“Did…” Hiccup coughed as the word caught in his throat. “Did she leave at the same time as Alvin?”

“Aye,” said Gobber, without looking around. There was something almost tangible about Gothi’s pain, and Hiccup dared not look in her direction either. “She disappeared the same night that he did.”

Gothi would have faced the same choice, Hiccup realised, and chosen to stay. On the heels of such a thought came the realisation that although Excellinor would be of advanced age now, Gothi’s age did not seem to deter her in the slightest.

“I didn’t see anyone on Outcast Island who… might have been her,” said Hiccup, still looking at Gobber no matter who he was addressing. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I didn’t see many people but… few women, and all of them were younger.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to ask, but… did she read about this in a book? Do you still have it?”

Gothi returned to the calfskin and sketched out a few symbols again.

“She took several books with her. I think they were the most…” Gobber tilted his head. “Real?” He looked at Gothi, who shrugged, then sat back on the crate. “The ones that might be the most help to her, I’d imagine.”

A nod from Gothi, enough to say it all. Her silence seemed oppressive now, rather than her usual neutral state.

“I’m sorry,” Hiccup said, quietly. “I didn’t know it would bring up this.”

Gothi drew out just a couple of symbols, and looked at him sympathetically. “No,” Gobber read out, “you didn’t. And that’s just why you shouldn’t apologise.”

 

 

 

 

 

By luck, there was a gap in the rain as they left to make their way home, even if the day was still quite grey and miserable. It felt as if it should have been evening by the time that they exited, and Hiccup’s head was still whirling as he knelt down to greet Toothless and get both huffed at and licked on the cheek. He did not miss Gobber pause at the door and offer, perhaps not as quietly as he meant to, to stay with Gothi a while, but she pushed his hand away and closed the door on him.

It had always impressed Hiccup how much could be said without words.

They made their way back down to ground level, and Gobber excused himself to the smithy where there were a small cluster of people waiting. For a moment, Hiccup considered going after him, but Gobber had not asked and he knew that there were other things he was needed for, other people he was needed by.

“Come on,” he said, to Elsa and Anna. “Let’s head home. We can have dinner ready for Gobber and my father.”

Anna managed a smile, even if it didn’t look quite right. “You mean that Elsa can manage dinner, and you and I can try not to make a mess.”

“Or that. Hey, if Heather got bored enough to cook, I’m not going to complain either.”

Concentrating, Hiccup could manage a fair enough meal, but Heather’s cooking had been something else altogether. They all trudged home, Elsa catching Anna when she slipped on some mud, and Hiccup held open the door for the girls to go in. He did not intend for Toothless to go in ahead of him as well, but was not much surprised when he did.

Shaking his head, Hiccup stepped in as well. The fire had burnt down quite a bit, and the warmth of the house was just starting to lose its edge. “Heather?” He undid his cloak, but did not hang it up. “Heather, are you all right?”

If she was sleeping, he would need to apologise, but there was not even the vaguest of responses. Frowning, cloak still clutched in his hand, Hiccup took the stairs two at a time to his room, catching himself in the doorway and taking it in at a glance.

“She’s not here.” He went to lean over the balustrade, before catching himself. There had not been a balustrade since an incident with Toothless in the spring. It made leaning down harder, but not impossible, and he found Anna and Elsa looking up at him. “Is Heather down there?”

“What?” Anna said. Elsa darted out of view, back towards the pantry, as Hiccup dodged around the stairs again. On the far side of the room, Toothless had stuck his head under the table, tail sweeping back and forth. “She said she’d stay here.”

“She might have just,” Hiccup caught his sentence by the tail as he spotted two full buckets of water by the fire. Not gone for water, then. “Gone to the outhouse. We’ll wait a few minutes, get dry, build up the fire, and–”

He was about to suggest not panicking when the door was slammed open. Cold air and thin light flooded in, and Hiccup whirled to see Astrid standing there, fury in her eyes, twisting Heather’s arm up behind her back and using the pressure to drive her forward.

“Hey!” said Hiccup, not able to muster anything else.

He strode over, but before he even reached them Astrid shoved Heather back into the room. As Heather stumbled, still not crying out, she almost collided with Hiccup; he caught her, steadied her, and guided her behind him almost in the same breath.

Astrid was still standing in the doorway, watching them, her fists clenched and her breathing hard.

“What the Thor are you doing?” said Hiccup. “Just because–”

“I found her snooping around my house,” Astrid snapped. “And she won’t give me an explanation.”

Hiccup looked round at Heather in surprise, still feeling off-balance from everything else that he had heard today. Any other time would surely have been better than this. Holding her shoulder, Heather looked between them with wide, nervous eyes.

“I just wanted to see the Nadder – Stormfly, wasn’t it? She looked beautiful.”

“You don’t get to meet her,” said Astrid. Even Hiccup was shocked by her vehemence. “And you certainly don’t get to give her whatever you were planning to.”

“It was just some boar that I had left–”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“All right, Astrid, I need you to calm down here,” said Hiccup, as forcefully as he could. Astrid, looked at him derisively. “I understand that you’re protective of Stormfly, but this is a complete overreaction.”

Her eyes had gone hard, more like blued steel than the soft sky that he knew. Shadowed against the pale sky outside, she almost scared him. The year before, she might have done.

“Overreaction?” she said, cold and clipped. “To an unknown person feeding my dragon unknown food? You wouldn’t be this restrained if it were Toothless.”

It had the taste of a threat on his tongue, and Hiccup almost recoiled, a crawling sensation down his spine. “Astrid, stop,” he said.

She looked at him and shook her head, then set her eyes firmly on Heather. “You don’t come near my house,” she said, “you don’t come near my family, and you certainly don’t come near my dragon.” Her hand rested on the hilt of the knife at her hip. “Do you understand me?”

Heather swallowed. “Yes,” she said.

“No,” he tried to butt in. “This isn’t fair. Heather is a guest in this house, and she is a guest on Berk. If she wants to walk about, she can walk about; if she wants to greet someone, she can greet them – whether that someone is human or dragon. Was Stormfly even objecting?”

“Well, I thought she quite liked me,” said Heather.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, and I don’t know why you’re doing it, but I can see something wrong when I see it. And if you want to prove me wrong, then I’d advise getting off this island and going back to your family.”

For a moment, meeting Astrid’s eyes, Heather’s gaze seemed to harden. Her lips pressed together, and she stopped hunching over to hold her shoulder quite so much. “I get it,” she said, after a pause that weighed heavily in the air between them. “I’m used to being an outsider. It comes with moving around.” She turned to Hiccup. “It’s fine. I’ll stay away.”

“No, this is not fine. This is threats and–”

“I thought you trusted her,” Astrid said tartly. “So trust her to make her own agreements.”

Before he could say anything more, Astrid snatched the door closed, leaving the room abruptly darker but still just as cold. The urge to yell rose in his throat, frustration suddenly shot through with tiredness, but he tamped it back down and breathed hard through his nose until it passed. The fire still needed to be built up, he still needed to work through what he had learnt that day, but now he needed to deal with this as well.

He turned first to Heather. “I’m sorry. I don’t quite know what’s going on with Astrid right now.”

“No, no,” said Heather, shaking her head and releasing her shoulder. “I’m sorry if I’ve caused problems for you.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m exactly helping. Look, when is this meeting you were talking about? Maybe I should go right after that. In case people need to hear me talk about anything.”

“It’s in three days,” Elsa offered. She was half-frowning, faint lines between her eyebrows and some hair falling loose to drift across her forehead. “But just because you are not born in Berk, it does not mean…”

There was a slight waver to her voice, barely perceptible, but Hiccup saw the way that her left fingers brushed against the inside of her right wrist. Whatever Astrid was doing, or thought that she was doing, Hiccup was fairly sure that it was not _just_ to do with Heather not being from Berk. But that was what Elsa was seeing, and Astrid’s actions were rippling out beyond where she intended them to.

“No, I get it, I really do,” said Heather. “Your dragons are really important to you – unique! So it’s not just being personally protective, it’s protecting Berk, being a warrior, isn’t it?”

A handful of days, and she had been able to read that. At any other time, Hiccup might have smiled as he nodded. “For Astrid, yes.”

“She sees me as a threat.”

“You’re not–”

“I _am_ a threat,” she said, and Hiccup looked at her in shock. She just shrugged. “I’m an unknown. Threats usually don’t turn out to be anything. She’s just identifying possibilities.”

He shook his head, gave up, and dragged over one of the chairs to drop down into. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that Heather was being more understanding than Astrid deserved, but he bit back the temptation. “I should go and talk to her,” he said, voice heavy even to his own ears.

“I’ll go,” said Anna. Unable to form a good response, Hiccup just looked at her blankly, and she gave Elsa’s arm a squeeze then stepped away and clasped her hands in front of her. “I’m the one who wasn’t with you on Outcast Island, right? Maybe she’ll realise that I’m… talking from somewhere more neutral.”

“Thank you,” said Hiccup. Anna nodded and hurried after Astrid; she had not even had time to take off her cloak, he realised. He put his head in his hands, and wished for a moment to breathe, and to think.

Elsa cleared her throat. “Would you like some water?” she said gently. Hiccup glanced up, to realise that she was talking to Heather with concern in her eyes. Heather nodded, and Elsa flitted back to the buckets of water.

“I am so sorry about this, Heather,” he said again, for lack of anything else that he could really say.

“It’s fine, really.” Her smile wasn’t quite true, but he appreciated the effort. “You’ve been far too good to me.”

“Don’t worry. As I said, you’re a guest. And in a few days, if you want, then you can get to see your parents again.”

She nodded. “That… that I am looking forward to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excellinor appears in the books - but Gothi does not, so this family relationship between Alvin and Gothi is entirely made-up. Nobody seems to know how old Gothi is, so her late eighties or getting into her nineties didn't seem impossible!
> 
> And, finally, we get a name for the mirrors. Volitmaglaer is a word which I have based on _hexenspiegel_ \- they both mean 'witches mirror', in Old Norse-ish and in modern German respectively. Hexenspiegels are still used in modern magic as a form of protection; they reflect back any negative magic aimed at the wearer, and intensify it threefold as they do so. The nine-sided frame (three times three), the obsidian, and the carved ancient runes (when Hiccup says they look off, he's actually seeing that they're an ancient form of runes, and they look strange to him in the same way that the Etruscan or Ancient Greek alphabets might look strange to someone who only knows the modern Latin one) are additions of my own, I must admit!


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: reference to cultural homophobia in Arendelle. Anna isn't being homophobic, but because she's trying to forcibly deny the homophobia of the culture which she grew up in, it doesn't come out in the clearest of ways.

The academy was, effectively, closed. It was the season for Berk to be busy, anyway, the end of the harvest and the beginning of the preparations for winter. Fishlegs was away, with a stammered explanation that the Ingermans’ goat was expected to be kidding any day now and huge besides, and Astrid was still not coming. Hiccup got Snotlout to keep bringing up barrels of fish, playing more than a little on the vanity involved, and had Fishlegs take up bags of rocks in the evenings for the dragons that needed in the most. Hiccup kept his own visits short, and tried to lie to himself that he was trying not to overly domesticate the dragons.

Anna had returned subdued, and said that all she had managed was to let Astrid vent her anger and then gotten her to agree not to go searching for Heather or starting any more fights – that if something else happened, she was to call for Stoick or Hiccup. It was at least something, though, and Hiccup had thanked her for it.

By the day before New Moon, Heather’s injuries were mostly healed, and she seemed happier when she had something to do with herself, whether it was cooking or even cleaning the leather of Toothless’s saddle. She knew how to protect leather from salt-spray, she explained with a shrug, and might as well have something to do.

With the rainstorm that opened up shortly before that dawn, bad enough for even Berkians to retreat indoors, he could not at all blame her. Toothless murred and huffed and generally made a nuisance of himself, climbing on chairs and patting at the fire, while Hiccup tried to get on with drawing the illustrations that would go onto the pages he had assigned to the Hobblegrunt. Fishlegs would have to add the writing at another point.

“So you do the charcoal ones first,” said Heather, sitting opposite with her chin in her hand, “and then do them in ink.”

“Yup.” Hiccup carefully sketched in the Hobblegrunt’s fin. “Trader Johann brings good-quality ink – he has some story about squid, and I have my doubts, but still,” he trailed off for a moment, while he licked his thumb and rubbed away another bit of charcoal, “it doesn’t fade, and the only way to get rid of it is to scrape it clean. Which is also why Fishlegs and I plan what we’re going to write _before_ we write it.”

“And this has _all_ of the dragon species now?”

“Well, everything we know about so far,” he pointed out, with a wave of his right hand to the book. With the angle that the page was at to let him draw without smudging, it was side-on to Heather as well. “I still need to look through my, uh,” he caught himself just before mentioning his mother, “my old journals I bartered for. I think there’s something in them about a type of dragon called Stormcutters. The Hobblegrunt can go in first, though.”

“How many dragons, then?”

He hadn’t actually been keeping track of that. Hiccup carefully set his pen aside where it would not drip, and put the cork back in the bottle. While Toothless was normally trustworthy around breakable things, he was not having the best of days, and Joan was still wildly unpredictable.

He flicked back to the page where they had been listing them, class by class. “We’re up to nearly three dozen, by now, actually. Gronckles have got the most; that’s because Fishlegs is watching the hatchlings all the time. Quite a bit for the Nadders and Nightmares as well, but nobody’s quite as keen on watching as Fishlegs.”

Heather chuckled. “Yeah, I noticed he was keeping a pretty close eye on them.”

“I’m doing my best to badger Anna into keeping notes on Joan. She’s the only hatchling Terror that we’ve managed to see so far.”

Anna was occasionally struggling to find the right words, or at least to find the right words in Northur, and what notes she did have were taking a certain amount of translation. But it was harder with only one hatchling; exact details were at once excruciatingly important and utterly useless without any idea as to how normal they were. Most likely, they would not enter the main book at all until they had some sort of comparison to work with.

“The rest varies,” he admitted, flicking through. There was still quite a lot about battle tactics when it came to some of them. “And I swear I’m still picking Gobber’s brain for dragons that he’s heard about over the years. Case in point, Hobblegrunt.”

Heather’s hand shot out, slipping between two pages, and Hiccup obligingly turned back to the one in question. It was the spread devoted to the Skrill, with what Hiccup would say was one of his better drawings. It owed more than a little to the insignia of the Berserker fleets, sharp-edged and rearing, teeth shining in the glare of its own lightning.

“There’s one to have nightmares about,” she said dryly.

“I may have been annoyed with the Berserker Chief while I was doing that drawing.” It had been a later addition, not in the first rush to get everything written up for Snoggletog but after the treaty signing and everything that had happened with it.

She shook her head, though her eyes never left the page. “I thought they went extinct centuries ago.”

“Yeah…” Hiccup ran a hand through his hair, then let it come to rest at the back of his neck. “That was Berk, actually. Well, most of it was us, anyway.”

“Really?” she looked genuinely surprised, and from beside the fire Hiccup saw Elsa look up curiously as well.

Turning in his chair, Hiccup caught Anna also looking at him with her head cocked. She had been more reserved over the past few days, still prone to not wanting Elsa out of her sight and to looking askance when Heather and Elsa would spend what she apparently deemed ‘too long’ talking about some island or another that Heather had visited. She had looked particularly troubled when Elsa had presented Heather with a leather satchel that she had fixed up with small, neat stitches, and Heather had seemed delighted.

“You heard about Skrills?” he said. Anna shook her head, and Hiccup tilted the book so that she could see the picture. “Insignia of the Berserkers – like Berk has the Nightmare, only they’re, well, more intense about it. They used to use them as weapons.”

Anna’s eyes went wide for a moment, then an idea visibly dawned and her mouth formed a circle of surprise. “Oh! Queen Joan!”

“Exactly. Er, it was Queen Joan of Arendelle whose army finally broke the Berserkers,” he explained, as Heather frowned. “That bit’s probably better known around here – Arendelle is our immediate southern neighbour, after all. But before that, Berserkers used them as weapons, and they had perhaps the misfortune to try to use them against _Berk_.”

“Which… has experience fighting dragons,” said Heather slowly.

He nodded. “Yeah, Berk didn’t take too kindly to that. Other enemies of the Berserkers might have been killing Skrills here and there, but Berk pretty much went to war against them. Wiped out all the known wild populations, and went after the Berserkers’ own. In something like thirty or forty years, they were gone. A few held on a bit longer in the hands of the Berserkers themselves, but…” he shrugged. For years, it had been considered one of the heights of Berkian history; even in recent years, it had been quieted largely because they did not want to offend their now-allies. The last year had cast it into a very different light. “By about two hundred years ago, they were gone. And seeing as Berserkers didn’t share their knowledge, and didn’t do much writing, there’s not much known about them anymore.”

Heather’s nail tapped against the edge of the book drawing his eyes back down. “But you do know something.”

“My – hang on.” He checked the generations on his fingers. “Yeah. My great-great-grandmother was a Berserker. She settled on Berk after her year viking, married the chief’s son. This was only a generation or so after Bork, so we were all a-flutter for dragon knowledge. She learnt to read and write enough to add notes to the Book of Dragons, or someone helped her getting it written down. She’d heard about the Skrills from her grandparents or so, most likely. The original notes are in my father’s copy of the book,” he said, with a vague wave towards the back bedroom. “I tidied them up a little for Gobber’s copy.”

“Wow,” said Heather. “That’s amazing. And definitely,” she finally withdrew her hand from the page, to prop her chin in it again, “a story worthy of a skald. I do know a couple of songs – mid-length, not the huge ones – that mention Skrills in them, but I’ve not sung them in years. My father had a couple that were meant for Berserker allies, and a couple that were meant for their enemies. I could see if I could remember the enemies ones, if you want.”

“Actually, I’d probably be more interested in the allies ones,” Hiccup said. “In case there’s anything in there about the dragons, true or otherwise. Well, preferably true.”

“As you probably know, the best stories are always a little bit of each.”

“Well, of course. On that note, before you head home, I need to have someone show you the Dragon Master game.” he said. “Should be good entertainment, at least.” All over again, he found himself appreciating the word _Master_ , as unideal though it was, compared to Alvin’s knife-edged _Conqueror_.

“Will the village meeting still go ahead in this weather?”

Thunder rumbled outside, but Hiccup nodded. “Oh, yes. It’s going to take more than a bit of rain to see Berk put off.”

 

 

 

 

 

As the day wore on, everyone grew increasingly fidgety, and Hiccup realised just how much he had come to rely on being able to fly in order to get everyone out of each other’s hair. By the time that night fell, Elsa was glancing up with increasing annoyance each time some noise or other interrupted her work in the skirt she was sewing, Heather had run out of work to do on Toothless’s saddle and had moved onto rubbing neatsfoot oil into Thornado’s, and Stoick was scowling at his wooden duck. Finally, Joan decided to steal a fish from Toothless when he glanced aside, and when she took off with it he gave chase, bounding over Gobber with a drawn-out chirp and trying to follow her under the table.

Hiccup yelped, clutching at the Book of Dragons with one hand and carefully holding his pen aside with the other to avoid dripping ink on the good paper. He managed to grab the ink bottle and jump to his feet just as Toothless squirmed under the table, sending it bucking like a ship in a storm. Joan darted towards Anna and Elsa’s room, Toothless still in pursuit, as Heather scrambled to stand up from the far side of the table and was instead knocked off her feet by a tonne of overenthusiastic Night Fury.

“Toothless!” Hiccup barked, just as Anna started shouting after Joan. “Toothless, stop that!”

Toothless skidded to a rather sulky halt just outside the door, while Joan scampered in and probably under the bed. With a sigh, Hiccup put down the ink, stepped round, and extended a hand down to Heather.

“Sorry about that. We’d usually go for a flight around sunset and burn off some of that energy.” Another rumble of thunder interrupted him, and he just pointed upwards by way of explanation. Rain was not that much of a problem, but flying in a thunderstorm definitely sounded like a step too far. Hiccup sighed. “Want to go for a bound around outside, at least, bud? Go and visit Thornado?”

Who probably thought that this was fine weather, and was eschewing the nice dry woodshed for a paddle in whatever puddles he could find. Or even a soak in a pool, if he could find one large enough. Toothless snorted.

“Well, that’s me told,” said Hiccup. “I’ll grab some firewood while I’m out there.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Anna said, unexpectedly. Hiccup blinked at her for a moment, then pulled his brain together and shrugged.

“Sure. More the merrier. Grab some boots.”

He opted for his cloak, stuck on his helmet to keep off the worst of the rain, and waited by the front door until Anna emerged from her room still tugging on the second of her boots. She dodged around Toothless and the furniture, grabbed her cloak from beside Hiccup’s, and whirled it on as he pushed open the door.

“Come on, Toothless.” He cocked his head towards the door and clicked his tongue. The night was a rich velvety darkness, rain glittering with reflected firelight, but there was just enough light outside that it would be possible to get to the woodshed and back. Toothless sat up, perking his flaps. “Yes, come on. Outside.”

Toothless scampered back across the room, tail clipping Stoick about the head as he did so, and straight out to disappear into the gloom. With rather less enthusiasm, Hiccup followed, and immediately turned to track the side of the house round to the woodshed.

It was not possible to see beyond a few feet, but he could just about make out Anna close beside him, her face a pale gleam in the darkness. When they reached the woodshed, there was no sign of Thornado beyond the nest-like hollow of straw that he had in place of Toothless’s scorched slate. The wood piled up at the rear of the shed did not even cover half of the wall, and Hiccup stood in the centre of the woodshed rather than bother going straight for it.

“Honestly, I’m mostly out here to let Toothless have a run about in the rain,” he said to Anna, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m sure Thornado is out there somewhere as well. We’ll know if he tries to call to us.”

“Well, it’s hard to miss a Thunderdrum,” said Anna.

It was a bit more of a surprise that the Hobblegrunt was not in the woodshed as well, but he had seen less and less of her with each passing day. When Elsa stepped out to wait, the Hobblegrunt would still fly back for her, but anyone else was being met with increasingly furious growls and snaps.

Technically, it was probably a _relief_ that she was not in the woodshed. Getting snarled at would just be the last straw for the day.

“Hiccup, while we’re out here… can I talk to you?”

He was drawn back out of his thoughts by Anna’s words. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see her more clearly, expression slightly pinched with worry and hands fidgeting against each other.

“Sure. What is it?” He tried to keep his tone as light as possible, even though it felt as if his heart was pounding in his chest.

Anna bit her lip, rocking from foot to foot. “I’ve been kind of thinking on this for a couple of days,” she said. “Just keeping an eye. But I –” she took a deep breath, then blurted out her words. “I’m worried about Heather.”

Beside Astrid’s hostility, kept at arm’s length since her outburst over Stormfly, Heather had mostly seemed to be improving. Hiccup had occasionally woken in the night still, and had not seen light from upstairs or heard her moving around again. He had not presumed to ask her whether she was still having nightmares, but would hope that they had at least lessened.

“Well, I’d ask her,” he replied. “But I think she’s doing better.”

Anna winced. “No,” she said, drawing out the word. Her left hand toyed with her right index finger. “I don’t mean I’m worried _for_ Heather. I mean I’m worried _about_ Heather. I’ve been keeping an eye on her the past couple of days, and something’s just… off.”

It felt like a blow, and forced the air out of his lungs. Hiccup sagged. “Astrid said something,” he said.

“She just explained why she was worried.” Anna still looked nervous, eyes slightly tight and shoulders hunched over, but she swallowed and continued. “She explained that she _was_ looking at Heather from a neutral stance, and that any other person coming to Berk right now would be treated more carefully than living in the chief’s house and seeing everything that we do with the dragons.”

“First,” said Hiccup, raising one finger, “I think that Astrid is sorely underestimating how much I want people to know about dragons. Yes, I would tell strangers about them. Because one less person fighting dragons is one less person killing dragons, and there’s no knowing how many dragons that might save.”

Anna looked chastened, but did not reply.

“And secondly,” another finger, “Heather is not ‘any other person’. She helped us escape. She helped care for the dragons. She’d already seen how to greet dragons before she even came here, never mind what she might have seen at the academy. Knowing what dragons are, what they can be…” he trailed off and shrugged. Beneath the steady rhythm of the rain, he thought that he could hear the pattering sounds of Toothless playing in the mud and puddles. “That’s the big step. The rest is just little pieces. H-how am I supposed to say that she can’t see me drawing the Hobblegrunt, or feeding and watering the dragons at the academy? She knew how we felt about dragons before she even came out here.

“And thirdly,” he finished, feeling tired again, “she’ll be going home in a couple of days anyway. I’m pretty sure that if she was going to cause some trouble, she would have done it by now.”

“I know, I know,” said Anna. “I’m sure that it’s nothing, I’ve just been keeping an eye anyway. It’s just that, well,” more fiddling with her hands, “she just makes me feel uncomfortable somehow, you know? The way she’s always hanging onto you and Elsa.”

Hiccup folded his arms. “Because everyone else has just been so welcoming,” he said. Then something clicked into place, and he narrowed his eyes at her in return. “Or is this just about the _Elsa_ part?”

It was hard to see in the darkness, but he thought that he saw Anna’s cheeks grow red. “It’s not that I’m _not_ concerned about you,” she said quickly. “I’m just… of course I’m looking out for Elsa more.”

“Anna…” he had been hoping to at least put off some sort of conversation like this until after Heather was gone, preferably until after the Outcasts had been dealt with, but apparently he was not going to be that lucky. “You’re still the most important person in Elsa’s life, but she’s allowed to have other friends. This probably just feels more noticeable because it’s the first time she’s making that friend _after_ she found you again.”

Anna scoffed, looking aside. “Friends, sure,” she muttered.

In all honesty, Hiccup had just taken Heather’s behaviour in their house to be an extension of the personable, bordering-on-flirtatious demeanour that he was relieved to see in the wake of Outcast Island. But he supposed that it could have been flirting. He had just been happy to see them both smile.

“Look,” he said, “Elsa has just as much right to flirt as anyone else, and just because it’s Heather–”

“It’s not because she’s flirting with another girl,” Anna snapped.

He blinked. “All right, first, woman, not girl. They’re adults on Berk.” He wondered how much of Arendelle was still hanging on, where all of them were still children and would be for some years yet. But that was not how life went on Berk. “Secondly, it wasn’t me who bought that up.”

Turning, he started to grab the firewood that he had been supposed to come out here to get. Part of him wished that he had bought a lantern, although it would have meant he did not have both hands free. Then at least he would be able to see Anna clearly, rather than as just a pale suggestion of a face in the darkness.

“I – I didn’t–”

He grabbed another piece of wood and pushed it into her hands pointedly. “I get it. Berk was probably too busy worrying about dragons and making sure that there were children being born and adults to take care of them. There’s plenty of people here raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles.” Even cousins, sometimes, or friends who as shield-brothers were as close as kin anyway.

Had Elsa been flirting in return? Hiccup would not exactly consider himself an expert when it came to flirting or romance, even before he had proved himself a spectacular fool over the last few days. He wasn’t even sure what Elsa flirting was supposed to look like. But if she were, then it was her business, not his and not even Anna’s.

Anna growled. “It’s the fact that Heather’s the person we know the _least_!” she said. “The rest of you, she knows, and I know! I mean, I might question her _taste_ if she was flirting with Snotlout,” she added. Hiccup gave her another piece of wood, but she made no sign of picking any up for herself rather than just holding it. Fine, then. He started loading up her arms. “But at least he wouldn’t be a _stranger_.”

“Right. I am sick of this argument.” He added what had been under his arm to her load as well. “And I know full well where it’s actually coming from. You get that inside, I’m going to talk with Astrid.”

“No, Hiccup;” Anna sounded pained. “I told her that I wouldn’t tell you–”

“You didn’t. I worked it out.” Not that Astrid would probably see much difference either, but Hiccup had full intention of taking the blame himself. “Toothless!”

He whistled, and caught the gleam of eyes just outside the door. There was just enough light to see by, and he suspected that if he went inside either he would think better of this or someone would dissuade him from it.

“What should I tell Stoick?” said Anna. She hurried to follow him out of the woodshed again.

“Just tell him that I needed to speak to one of the riders,” Hiccup replied, tugging his cloak tighter about himself. “Or that I’ve got a message to relay.”

 

 

 

 

 

By the time that he was halfway to Astrid’s house, he was regretting it. The continued rain was dripping down his neck, sneaking through every gap in his clothing and even a few which he would swear were not there. But he was too angry to back off, and with Toothless huffing and rumbling behind him he picked, or occasionally staggered, through the wind and rain until he made it to Astrid’s house.

He knocked on the door, had no idea whether it was audible, and muttered curses that were not even in the form of words. Turning his hand, he used the side of his fist instead of his knuckles and knocked harder, so that he was sure he could be heard.

A particularly vicious gust of wind made him stagger against the door, and Toothless barked in the darkness beside him. The door was yanked open, and Runa looked out, backlit by the fire.

“Hiccup?” He could not really begrudge her the surprise in her voice. “Come in, come in.”

Hiccup shook his head, even if doing so felt pretty absurd. Despite being in the light of the door, the wind and rain seemed to conspire to get right in his face. Runa rolled her eyes, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in, where he tried not to drip too much on the floor as she shut the door behind him.

He almost opened his mouth to ask about Toothless, but caught himself. They had not yet seen a dragon that was bothered by the rain, and Toothless would most likely just go and see Stormfly for the first time in days as well.

“What’s happened?” said Runa. The concern was clear in her face, that he had come round in this weather after dark, and he felt a stab of guilt. Astrid stood at the table, clearly having just jumped to her feet, looking at him with a mixture of the same concern and an undercurrent of anger.

“I just need to talk to Astrid.” He wiped water off his face as best he could. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. It’s just–”

Carr stood up as well, wiping his mouth clean, and stepped away from the table. More details managed to fill themselves in, from Smokey curled around the back of Carr’s chair and the well-built fire to the food still spread out on the table. Of course, he had not even really thought about what he might have been interrupting. “We’ll let you talk.”

“I’m sure Hiccup can say it publicly,” said Astrid, and whether she meant it or was just needling him it was impossible to say. Hiccup caught her gaze, and she tilted her head with challenge in her eyes.

“We’ll let you talk,” Runa repeated, more forcefully, and the twitch of muscle in Astrid’s jaw made it clear enough that Carr and Runa knew some of what was going on as well.

Astrid barely waited until her parents were out of sight upstairs. “What’s happened?”

The anger twisted sharply up through the guilt again. “Look, I came to say that whatever disagreement you and I are having, it’s unfair to bring anyone else into it. Putting ideas into Anna’s head, making her uncomfortable about her sister, that’s just not fair.”

Astrid started to protest, looking unimpressed.

“And as for turning Anna against her sister, you should be _ashamed_ of yourself.” After everything that both of them had been through, it was the last thing that Hiccup wanted to do, to drive any sort of wedge between them.

Astrid, though, scowled. “Oh, don’t throw that at me,” she said sharply. “As for bringing everything else into it? What do you think you did, when you bought Heather to the academy? You introduced her to everyone with your interpretation. Don’t go assuming that you’re a neutral party here.”

On that, she probably had a point, but Hiccup did not let his grim expression waver. “Maybe not. But I’m the one who’s known her the longest–”

“A handful of days!”

“And the one who saw her facing Alvin. Saw the moment that she first looked into a dragon’s eyes. There’s no faking that, Astrid.”

“So what? Just because she’s an enemy of Alvin doesn’t mean she’s a friend of ours. It just means she’s got a brain in her head.”

“You don’t–”

No. He could not bring Elsa’s fear into this. Astrid was unsettling Elsa, perhaps even scaring her, but that was not Hiccup’s pain to talk about and he certainly had no right to use it in some private argument. Hiccup shook his head.

“She’s asked to leave the day after the town meeting. Can you be civil for two days?”

Astrid laughed, but the sound was bitter. “You are so full of yourself. Suddenly you can do no wrong, is that it? You know what? This time, I’ll admit it. It looks like you got lucky, and Heather isn’t a danger to us.”

This was getting absurd. “Lucky? Lucky, to read someone’s intentions?”

“Lucky that the person you decided to trust straight away hasn’t done anything.” Astrid pushed her chair further back, wood scraping on wood, and stepped round to stand almost defiantly in front of the table. “Is there anything else that you’re here to say, or is this just an extension of the same argument?”

There was an edge to her voice, and just for an instant he wondered if she hated this as well. The only times that he had seen her, for days, had been from a distance. If she had looked in his direction, he had quickly turned away, not wanting this argument to hang in the air between them, huge and unspoken and heavy on his shoulders. But he held back, and wondered if, even once Heather was gone, they would be able to talk this through.

Hiccup sighed. “She’ll be gone in two days. Can we… talk then about having the academy start up again?”

“We’ll probably need it, depending on what happens with Alvin,” said Astrid. Some of the edge had gone from her voice as well, at least. “That’ll be decided tomorrow evening as well, right?”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t sure whether her pause was a hesitation. “Then we can speak after the village meeting. An academy meeting.”

The word _academy_ said it all. He wished that he could talk to her privately, even ask if she knew about Gothi being Alvin’s grandmother. Her parents would; they would have been on Berk when Alvin and Excellinor left. But whether it was a spoken or unspoken agreement to not tell the younger generation, Hiccup had no idea.

“Sure,” he said. “Then… I guess that I’ll see you again then.”

He tried not to let it hurt too much as he let himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of another arc! Next week... well, that would be telling.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Betrayal Arc.
> 
> Yes, shit is about to start going down.

It continued to rain even as the village meeting started. Although it had been some moons since anything serious had been up for discussion at one of the meetings, they had still been called occasionally, often without Hiccup having to be in attendance. Stoick had seemed quietly pleased that they had been able to establish some sort of routine, but Hiccup knew this was going to be the test of it.

Heather was pale and distracted with nerves, and in the end Hiccup suggested that she stay home, and that if they did need to hear from her then he would come and get her. Her eyes widened, and she stared at him for a good couple of seconds before actually speaking.

“You mean that?”

He nodded. “I saw the same as you did. I’m hoping that even Elsa won’t have to speak too much.” It was partially to do with being the chief’s son, he supposed. But far more than that, he did not want to have to put them on the spot, to make them talk in front of everyone.

Heather smiled, even if it looked a little sad. “Thank you.”

“Also, it means you get to stay dry,” said Hiccup, with a nod to the ceiling. There was still the occasional rumble of thunder, although the steady south-westerly wind was driving it off. “It’s going to smell like a lot of damp Vikings up there.”

Her smile stayed wan. Whether that was because she did not know how bad damp Vikings could get, Hiccup did not know, but he had to hurry back down the stairs and join his father to head up to the Great Hall.

Rather than have him standing on a chair again, it seemed that someone had decided to find a low crate and cover it in a plain canvas sheet, probably an old sail. It looked a little more dignified, and Hiccup had to admit that it reminded him of a dais. Standing on it bought him up to around his father’s shoulder height, and when they were on the stone steps at the top of the hall that was just about enough to see everyone.

The last time that this many people had been present, it had been over whether the dragons and Elsa were welcome in Berk. Without a cane to keep his hands busy, Hiccup found himself fiddling with the cuffs of his tunic, at least until he realised that Stoick was looking at his hands and stopped abruptly.

He spotted Elsa, sticking close to Gobber and standing quietly in the lee of one of the pillars. It had become her usual place, a little more sheltered from the main bustle of Berk. More and more people kept arriving, filling the Hall with damp warmth and low chatter, and Hiccup spotted Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs among those who arrived. He was surprised, and disappointed, when Astrid did not appear as well. He would have thought that she would at least be present for this.

Stoick called the meeting to order when it seemed like most everyone had arrived, and called for the doors to be closed to stop the wind howling around them and rain lashing in whenever there was a gust at the wrong angle. Standing on his tiptoes, Hiccup could see Runa, but not Carr. Perhaps he was with Astrid instead.

It felt even more deeply wrong that dealing with Alvin seemed more manageable than fixing one argument with someone his own age.

He did not talk about the buckle; that was not the business of the whole village. He skipped ahead, to where he had landed on an uninhabited island only for the Outcasts to emerge and take them captive. He outlined that Alvin had shown himself to be capable of capturing and subduing dragons, and that he had forced Hiccup to show him how to greet them. There were some mutters and rumblings at that, and Hiccup braced himself for the accusations that he should have done more, or done less, or somehow managed to prevent it from happening at all. But he pushed quickly on to escaping and destroying the dragon cells as best he had been able to, and the tone of the room turned optimistic instead.

“All right,” Stoick bellowed, voice carrying easily through the Hall. It didn’t matter how many people were talking; Stoick was always able to make himself heard over them. “Quiet!”

It didn’t quite silence everyone, but it was close enough.

“Thanks to Hiccup, we now have news of what the Outcasts are doing,” Stoick said. Hiccup wasn’t entirely sure that he deserved any sort of _praise_ for what had happened, but he supposed that it could have been a lot worse had he not managed to escape, and get the dragons away, when he did. “What we do not know is whether Alvin has other cells, or how quickly he might be able to find other dragons to fill them. We must presume that he has, and will, quickly. Our question is;” Stoick’s voice rose with the wave of noise; Hiccup quickly looked for the other dragon riders and was not at all surprised to see each of them looking nervous and determined both at once. “What are we to do about it?”

“The Outcasts aren’t just our problem,” someone shouted, from the depths of the crowd. There were sounds of agreement from around the Hall. “Other islands have fed that beast.”

“It’s us they’ll come for first,” someone retorted, before Stoick even had time to. “We’re closest, and Alvin’s leading them. He’ll be back.”

Another voice. It always turned into this, people shouting all but the first thing that came into their heads. “Alvin couldn’t even turn up to his own hólmganga. He won’t have the balls to take us on.”

“You, talking like that. Who’s the bloody coward now?”

It started to deteriorate, people shouting at each other at once, and Hiccup reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Beside him, he saw rather than heard his father sigh, then Stoick turned and raised a querying eyebrow in Hiccup’s direction.

It took Hiccup a moment. Then he pointed to his chest and mouthed, ‘Me?’ and still managed to feel surprised when Stoick nodded. He drew a deep breath, readying to shout, then caught himself, patted his pockets for the whistle he had taken to carrying, and put it to his lips.

The shrill whistle, which he had not used on other people since Thawfest, cut effectively through the room. There were more than a few stares. Hiccup felt very aware of his heartbeat in his chest, and took another deep breath.

“Having seen what I have,” he said, voice not really feeling like it was enough to fill the Hall but trying anyway, “I would say that the worst case scenario is Alvin being able to get dragons willing to attack for him in about half a moon. Nearly half of that time is already gone. The sailing season is closing, and the currents lead _to_ Outcast Island, but I do not believe we can depend on that.”

The words tasted bitter on his tongue. In many ways, it felt wrong, to be standing on this makeshift dais and telling people this, when a year and a half ago he had been a fool boy who many people had not even thought would make a Viking. It felt more wrong to have them listen. But however little he wanted a fight, however little he wanted to speak the slow certainty that had been building in his gut, he knew that he owed people the truth.

“Berk have always been the gatekeepers of Outcast Island. We held their south, and their north was impassable by sea. But those seas have opened up.” They might as well have made sure the jail door was locked as the back wall crumbled away. “Outcast Island is no longer a holding place, an island where we can send people that we do not want to think about.” There was more talk at that, some of it defensive, some angry, and he had to raise his voice again until he hurt his throat. “They are an island now, not a jail, and we must treat them as we would any other.”

Any other filled with criminals and exiles, of course, some of whom at least were known to have grudges against Berk. For a moment, Hiccup caught his breath as another memory flickered in his thoughts. Savage running in, talking of an _answer_. At the time, he had been too exhausted to do anything other than assume it was someone on Outcast Island, but now the fear sunk in that it might be another.

He did not have time to voice that thought now. It was something he would have to tell his father, and quickly. “We must make our decision, whatever it may be. To fight them;” some calls of support; “to offer them a peace treaty–” roars of disapproval hit him like a wave, such that he almost swayed in place. Hiccup tried to shout over everyone again, but it was too much, the whole Hall ringing with noise and arguments starting to break out. He could see a tussle, deep in the crowd and far too far away to reach.

“Quiet!” Stoick shouted, hands cupped around his mouth and still loud enough to make Hiccup wince. “ _Quiet!_ ”

It had no effect. Apparently the thought of making a treaty with the Outcasts was just too much. Perhaps what had happened with the Berserkers, so recently, had fed into that. Hiccup sighed and turned to Toothless, who was curled up beside the fire so still and quiet that he could have been just a shadow. With a click of his tongue and twitch of his hand, Hiccup called him over, until Toothless sat beside him, head up and ears pricked.

Hiccup made the symbol for a plasma blast, then pointed to the ceiling. He shielded the ear closer to Toothless as the dragon inhaled, and clenched his eyes shut just as Toothless fired.

It seemed to shatter the air. Light flashed, the air boomed like a trapped thunderclap, and awestruck silence fell in the wake of it. Hiccup saw a lot of eyes fixed on him, and no few on Toothless.

“We still have things which Outcast Island does not,” said Stoick, voice projecting through what felt like the ghosts of echoes. “We are united, one island, while they come from many. We have good land, good stores, and good supplies. And even if Alvin tries to use dragons, he will not have the loyalty that we have, and he will _certainly_ not have a Night Fury.”

That had not been a point which Hiccup had expected to come up, and even he looked at his father in surprise. He supposed that it was true; he had seen Toothless playing with the other dragons, and it seemed that a Night Fury could tackle to the ground even the power of a Monstrous Nightmare or the wiliness of a Nadder. His speed had outstripped even the Speed Stingers, and nothing save the unending flames of the Red Death had seemed to match him for raw firepower. But it was still strange to think of Toothless, the dragon he had so often slept beside or spoken to idly, being discussed as a possible weapon of war.

“I see four clear choices,” said Stoick. “We attack them now, we call them to a negotiating table now, we wait until we are sure the seas are closed and pit our dragons against the possibility of theirs, or we must wait until spring if we wish to use our own ships or those of allies. Anything else is details. Those are your options.”

It had the clear tone of opening the discussion, and people immediately began to talk to their neighbours. Hiccup’s shoulders sagged; it would be hours now until there was a response, until people had made their decisions and formed their factions, and most likely Stoick would wade in and keep an eye to make sure that no small disagreements got out of hand or turned into scuffles.

“Do you want me out there?” said Hiccup. Stoick looked surprised at the offer. “I mean… do you want me talking to people?”

Stoick considered for a moment, hand half-raised as if to stroke his beard but never quite getting there. “No,” he said finally. “Stay here, with Toothless. I think that’s a stronger message, right now. If people have questions, though, they may approach you. Are you all right with that?”

Hiccup could think of a few questions about the situation that he could not answer, but mostly he was not too worried. He nodded, and Stoick’s smile turned proud as he nodded, then made his way down the steps and out into the crowd.

“All right, bud,” said Hiccup, dropping down off his dais and running a hand over Toothless’s shoulder. Toothless huffed. “Looks like it’s you and me up here.”

 

 

 

 

 

For the most part, he was left to himself, until his foot began to ache from standing around for so long. There were a few questions, most of which he unfortunately could not answer – how Alvin was capturing the dragons, whether and how he had chosen the breeds deliberately, whether he had more cells prepared for dragons to be held in. He answered as fully and honestly as he could, and was both surprised and relieved when people generally accepted his answers and returned to keep discussing.

Most of the time, a hand on Toothless’s shoulder or neck helped, as well. Even when Toothless started looking around in the way that usually meant he was getting bored, he did not lie down or start roaming around. That helped, as well.

As the night wore on, the rain outside continued, and the wind seemed, if anything, to grow worse. In a gap in people asking him questions, during which Hiccup was mostly keeping his mind busy by wondering why his foot hurt more than his stump and envying Elsa for having found somewhere to sit down with Gobber at the edge of the Hall, Fishlegs finally came to join him.

“Hey,” said Hiccup. “Everything all right?”

Fishlegs nodded, if a little hastily. “My mother’s here,” he said. “Frog and Pig are at home… she figured it would be better if this wasn’t Frog’s first village meeting.”

Hiccup nodded, and did his best to look sympathetic. That, he could definitely understand; Froglegs had only turned twelve a couple of moons ago, and although she had every right to be at village meetings it would probably be better if her first were not about the possibility of going to war. There was a significant lack of twelve- and thirteen-year olds, anyone too young to have gone through the arena or academy.

It would only be a couple of years until Froglegs was old enough for the academy, he realised distantly. That was strange to think. Hopefully by then, things would be more settled.

“I’ll try to make sure that next moon is about yak storage or something,” Hiccup went for. “Make sure that she understands how boring they usually are.”

Fishlegs chuckled, though it didn’t exactly sound like his heart was in it. “Meatlug’s with them, too. They’re teaching Skyfire and Silversnap to open doors.”

Which sounded like a recipe for disaster, if Hiccup were honest, but it would at least be interesting to see if they could learn it. “Meatlug will keep an eye on them.”

Nodding, Fishlegs offered a hand for Toothless to sniff. He swallowed, words clearly stymied on his tongue, and Hiccup waited patiently for them to come out. “We’re going to end up fighting them, aren’t we?”

“I think so,” Hiccup admitted. Not just ‘we’ Berk, but ‘we’ the dragon riders, from the way it was going. “My father will do his best to plan it well, though. And he’s dealt with Alvin before.”

“Yeah.” Fishlegs looked back at Toothless again. Hiccup could not blame him for that, either; Toothless probably looked more like a protector than Hiccup did, right now. Fishlegs heaved a sigh. “Reckon they’ll decide before dawn?”

Hiccup shrugged. “It’s already gone midnight. But there’s no real fights breaking out. I think the tide’s coming in on the discussion.”

With a gloomy nod, Fishlegs looked away again. Getting an answer would be better, it had to be, than not knowing at all. But knowing that they were looking at a battle was not going to be fun either. Hiccup followed his gaze out over the crowd, wondering how much was going to be them deciding whether he was going to fight, and how much had been his words swaying their vote. It was an uneasy feeling.

With a crash, the doors of the Great Hall were thrown open, and Stormfly shrieked, wings flared against the darkness. Lightning cracked in the sky above her, but the thunder was several seconds behind, and the silence broke to hisses and muted comments in its wake as there was a perceptible shift in the crowd away from the door.

Stormfly remained in the doorway, wings spread, head snapping from one side to the other as she eyed the crowd. Hiccup all but jumped back up onto the crate he had been standing on, trying to see past people, and his blood ran cold as he realised that Astrid was standing in front of Stormfly, dripping with water and blood.

He jumped back to the ground and ran towards her, not much caring about people in the way. Whether they parted for him or he barged through, he was not even sure, but they were parting anyway as Astrid strode up the centre of the room. Finally, the crowd parted completely, and Hiccup was left face to face with her.

She was shivering, bloody water dripping down her face from her temple, down her arms, and from a tear in her leggings that revealed a bloody wound on her knee. There was fury in her eyes, a loosely-tied rag around her neck, and her hands were still bound together.

“Astrid!” boomed Stoick, appearing through the crowd as well. They always parted for him. “What happened?

For a moment, Astrid met Hiccup’s eyes, and anger and betrayal made them dark. Then she turned to Stoick. “Outcasts,” she said. “I found them on a beach, east of the academy. Heather went with them.” Once again, she spared a look for Hiccup, blood dripping into her left eye. “No bonds. She wasn’t a prisoner.”

It took a moment for realisation to spread through the gathered village, and then the shouting started. Hiccup could not even make out the words, just felt the hubbub of noise pressing down on him, the sudden and stark knowledge that whatever Heather had done, he had facilitated it.

This was, without any doubt or excuse, his fault.

The walls of noise pressed in around him, so solid and heavy that he felt like his knees might buckle. He stared at his father’s feet, unable to look up and risk seeing that disappointment again, that old familiar feeling made a thousand times worse by knowing what the consequence could be this time.

“Silence!” Stoick roared. It had the ring of a battlecry about it, and probably that more than the word itself was what made people fall quiet for him. “When was this?”

“I don’t know,” said Astrid, with bite to the words. “I followed Heather after nightfall. But I ended up in the water for my troubles.” She held up her bound hands. “It was Stormfly who bought me back. But with these winds, they could be halfway to Outcast Island by now.”

“I’ll go,” said Hiccup, more from his gut than from his head. “Toothless is still fast enough to catch. One boat won’t be a match for him.”

Runa made it through the crowd, drew a knife that she should not have been carrying from her boot, and cut the ties on Astrid’s wrists. The skin beneath was raw to the verge of blood. Astrid took the knife from her mother and cut away the loose band that had been around her neck, and he realised that it must have been a gag. She threw it to the floor with a wet slap.

“I’m going,” she snarled. “Stormfly can keep up.”

“Astrid–” he began.

“Shut up,” she said, with even more viciousness than he would have expected. “I’ve seen them, and they won’t be expecting to see me back. I’m taking them down.”

“Hiccup,” Stoick said. “I need you to take all of the dragon riders, and Spitelout on my behalf. Regroup. You have half of one hour before you fly. I will finish this meeting, and call the war council afterwards.”

What hope there might have been evaporated in his chest.

 

 

 

 

 

It was Spitelout who led them to the armoury. Everyone who could ride a dragon, Stoick had said, but it still felt strange to not just have the main core of them but also Speedifist, Wartihog, Clueless, and Runa accompanying them. Gobber came as well, the move unchallenged; he might not ride dragons, but he might well have still been the expert.

The armoury was probably the closest place to the Great Hall that all of them would have room to stand, once they had Toothless and Stormfly alongside them. Runa stepped out of sight behind a couple of crate and reappeared with her undershirt in her hands, using it to wipe away the blood on Astrid’s face.

“The Outcasts only bought a small boat,” said Astrid, once they were all assembled and Spitelout had given her a nod. Hiccup tried to make himself look like one of the circle, but nobody quite wanted to stand next to him. Anna had her arm locked around Elsa’s, and she was not stepping anywhere near. “Eight, ten of them, no more. The storm’s heading towards Outcast Island, will carry them there.”

“And this Heather?” said Spitelout.

“It was her that I followed there.” Astrid kept her eyes on Spitelout as she spoke, but Hiccup could feel the others glancing towards him and then quickly looking away. He could not meet anyone’s eyes. “She greeted Savage by name, and got ready to board.” She sighed, a hiss between her teeth. “The wind caught the rocks near me, and they looked over. One of them saw something. I tried to run, but…” she put her hand over the injury on her right arm, high on the bicep. “One of them clipped me with a crossbow bolt. Then they were on me.”

Runa said nothing, but there was pain in her eyes, a line between her brows. She set about ripping her undershirt into pieces, folding one piece into a makeshift dressing and using a second to bind it into place around Astrid’s arm.

“They took me a way out to sea,” Astrid continued. “Dumped me overboard. None of them could have been from Berk – it was near a shallow area, I stayed afloat and got my gag free to call for Stormfly. It took time, though.” Her frown deepened. “I don’t know how long.”

“Weapons?”

“Crossbows. Hand weapons. The ship was too small for catapults or anything of that sort, I think, and I didn’t see any.”

Spitelout nodded. “Good detail. Well-spotted. Right!” He clapped his hands. “Sounds like something your dragons should be perfect for, but you need to get to them before they meet up with others or get back on their shores. How many of the dragons are fast enough?”

The dragons would have the wind at their backs, but the boats would have done as well. Without knowing how far away they were, it was all but impossible to say, and Hiccup shook his head. “Depends on what lead they’ve got, and how they’re trimming their sails,” he said. Fishlegs nodded cautiously at the talk of the sailing, but Astrid’s jaw twitched when Hiccup spoke. “Toothless can do it. Probably Stormfly. Hookfang and Girl Hookfang, maybe. The only other dragon that could probably do it is the Scauldron, but I don’t want to be leading any of the rescued dragons back into a combat situation.”

“Not if one of them’s a spy as well,” Snotlout muttered, not at all under his breath. Hiccup flushed hot, but Spitelout did not even acknowledge it.

“Right. Is that with one rider each, or two?” Spitelout looked straight at Hiccup for the first time.

“Maybe two light riders,” he said. “No heavy armour, either. One for the Nightmares, if they have a chance of keeping up.”

“I’m bringing Heather back,” said Astrid. “She’s got questions to answer.”

Hiccup opened his mouth to speak, but Spitelout was already nodding. “Yes. We should speak to her. See what she knows. One to each dragon it is, then.” He glanced over to the lantern that he had bought with him. “You’ve got a quarter-hour to be patched-up enough to fly.”

“I will be.” With the words, Astrid took a couple of steps away from their circle, and turned her gaze to her mother. The message of her movements was more than clear enough.

Spitelout nodded, and scanned them all again before his eyes settled on Elsa. “And you, lass? That ice could be of use.”

Elsa swallowed, eyes widening subtly, then steadied herself. “Probably not,” she said. “Alvin knows of a way to prevent it. It may be that I can break through it…” she glanced at Hiccup, with a tremor of uncertainty. “I did with one of the mirrors.”

He wanted her to be there, desperately. But he had to shake his head. “That was one, and it cracked your ribs. If there are several… no. I can’t ask you to do this.”

Anna’s hand tightened on Elsa’s arm, until Elsa winced. She put a hand over Anna’s in return, and Anna looked round fearfully and seemed to relax her hold.

“Boyo,” said Spitelout, looking straight at his son. Snotlout looked round, visibly startled. “You’ve got that male Nightmare. Who’s best for the female one?” he scanned them.

There was a long silence, split with nervous glances. Hiccup’s heart was pounding in his ears, until he could not even think who it would be best to put on the back of the female Nightmare. She did not have one dedicated rider in the way that the rest of them did, and too heavy as well was the knowledge that any name he said would be accepted, would mean that person would be sent out with the expectations of fighting.

“I’ll go,” said Runa, stepping back into the circle of lanternlight as Astrid bound her own knee. “She knows me, I can fly. And I know I can shoot from dragonback.”

“Done,” said Spitelout. “Meet at the academy. A quarter-hour. The rest of you, back to the Great Hall.” One more flicker of his gaze over them all, as if searching for something, then he settled on Anna. “Pass the message to Stoick, if he isn’t arse-deep in arguments.”

“Right!” said Gobber, with more confidence in his tone. “Let’s get going, catch Alvin with his knickers down. Chop, chop!”

He set to usher the others out, and Hiccup stepped back to let as many people as possible leave. Astrid pushed blood-streaked hair out of her face, revealing a scrape to her temple and forehead and a clump of hair torn away. In the wake of everyone leaving, he stepped forward, feeling as small and as guilty as ever he had.

“Astrid,” he said. “I just–”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she replied. She did not meet his eyes, and her voice was not quite cold but unsteady. “I’m not ready to hear it.”

Hiccup swallowed, and acquiesced. “I’ll see you at the academy,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Elsa was waiting just outside the academy, in the still-pouring rain. He hugged her, promised that he would be back soon, and turned home to collect Toothless’s saddle as Anna stepped over to her sister pointedly.

He still intended to pull away from Astrid, if he could. Get ahead of her; the Nightmares would be no problem, in comparison, to outrun. If he could deal with this boat himself, then just maybe he could manage to deal with some of the fallout of the mistakes that he had made.

Toothless’s saddle slipped into place easily enough, despite his shaking hands, and he wrapped up in dark clothing, topping it off with an old grey hooded cloak that would hopefully pass as _mostly_ waterproof. The thing he took the most care over was checking his stump, putting on fresh bandages and trying to make it as securely waterproofed as possible. The last thing he wanted was for his leg to give out in mid-air.

If it had not been for the Jorgensons waiting at the academy, he might still have taken to the sky ahead of the others. He was not even sure whether it would have counted as being brave, or losing his nerve entirely. Neither of them spoke to him as he set down and waited, checking over Toothless’s saddle for lack of anything else that he could do. Girl Hookfang’s saddle was already in place, even Snotlout had acceded to a cloak against the cold and rain, and all that they could do was wait for Runa and Astrid to join them.

It was not long until they did, Stormfly coming in to land just outside the academy. Runa slid down and trotted in, eyes set and firmly not looking at Hiccup. He knew that look well, the worry of a parent, and was even more ashamed that he had been the one to put it on her face. Only in its absence had he really come to realise how often Stoick had worn the same expression.

She exchanged a few quiet words with Spitelout, who patted her on the shoulder, then greeted Girl Hookfang and stroked her cheek before climbing up into the saddle.

“Let’s get moving!” Astrid shouted from outside. Theoretically, Hiccup probably should have been annoyed, should have pushed to take control instead, but he could not bring himself to do so. She had every right to want to take the helm on this one. “Come on!”

Hiccup swung himself back into the saddle, and with the slightest shift of his leg sent Toothless bounding up the academy entrance and into the air outside, holding position despite the gusts of wind. Rain thrummed on his wings, and Hiccup could feel the difficulty of holding position as the air gusted around them. He knew that he would not be able to hold it for long, but it did not take time at all before Girl Hookfang and Hookfang scuttled out of the academy and took to the air. In one sharp movement, Astrid and Stormfly took off to join them again. Stormfly’s pale stomach was too visible in the darkness, and Hiccup frowned, but he knew that Astrid would not accept him saying anything.

“All right, then!” Spitelout jogged up and stood grinning beneath them, then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Sail well, fight hard, be back by dawn!”

“We will be,” Astrid snarled, and was the first to turn them to the north and take off again.

They flew in silence, and whenever Hiccup glanced around the eyes of the others were focused on the distant suggestion of a horizon. The wind was swinging from the southeast to the south, and the first stretch would not be at all hard to fly. Keep the faint flickering lights of Berk at their back, and they would be fine. Beyond that, the dragons would help; they had a far better sense of direction than any human Hiccup had met. But he had not dared ask any of the others whether they were carrying magnetic compasses; if they had not, and he was the only person with one, then he would need to be the one to call if they went off-course.

He hoped that it did not come to that.


	27. Chapter 27

They were going to kill people.

That was the thought that he could not shake, as they flew in silence through the gusting winds and lashing rain. The waves crashed below them, and Hiccup tried to distract himself in wondering how the Outcasts could be so mad or so desperate as to sail in weather like this, but desperation itself proved enough of an answer and his thoughts slid inexorably back to the knowledge that this was a hunt, not of animals or even of information, but of men and women.

He desperately wanted there to be another way, but knew that it had gone too far for peace talks or conversations. Alvin had not come to them with offers of peace; he had only talked about it, briefly, while he had Hiccup kidnapped and forced to work for him. Surely, that could not be considered truthful.

Hiccup’s hands tightened on Toothless’s saddle until they ached, his shield heavy against his back. There had been death in Astrid’s eyes, and he could not blame her, would not even have blamed her if the death had been meant for him, after what he had done. His only defence was that it had been done in ignorance and not in malice, but that did not change what the results had been.

Astrid pushed Stormfly hard, low to her back and eyes fixed on the horizon, but Toothless kept pace with her effortlessly. Even when Snotlout shouted out that he and Runa were falling behind, all that Astrid did was shoot back that they had known that was a risk.

Only once did she look across at Hiccup, expression hard and angry. He knew that he deserved every ounce of that, as well.

Berk fell away behind them, and the water opened up. Thunder and lightning crashed in the sky ahead of them, the storm that they were chasing and the Outcasts must have been riding, and Hiccup kept his eyes on the horizon for any sign of a ship.

It was utterly futile. Black clouds merged into grey-tipped black sea, and more than once it was Toothless swinging sharply to the left or right that gave Hiccup warning for even huge spines of rock that shot from the surface. They were all but blinded, even before the rain closed everything in to a blurred sphere around them, and Hiccup had to check using his finger to know where his compass was pointing at all.

The cold throbbed in his fingers, barely kept at bay by the heat of shame and anger in his chest. Mostly shame. He checked the hilt of the Gronckle iron knife at his hip, but even that felt uncomfortable, felt wrong to touch with thoughts of planned violence in his mind. It had been bad enough when they had thrashed and fought their way off the island, but this was unspeakably more.

Cold rain crept in beneath his hood, burned and then turned numb on his forehead, got into the creases of his hands and felt like it would freeze there. He was not wholly sure that it was just the wind pinning his clothes to his skin. But he flew, because that was what they had to do, the only hope that he had of making up for his mistakes.

The Outcasts were not fools. Alvin would have them using plain dark sails again, would not waste bright-painted shields on the gunwhale. They probably had the same covered lantern as before, if the sea had not put it out altogether. Leagues must have passed, the wind still behind them and letting Toothless glide as much as really fly, but there was still no sign and Hiccup felt a sick roil in his stomach. Surely even if they had wrecked, there would have been some sign by now.

By his calculations, they had to be approaching the very island that they had been using as a watchtower when they saw Venomspur’s ship. It felt so long ago now. Hiccup glanced over his shoulder, and thought that he saw movement against the clouds that might have been the two Monstrous Nightmares, but did not have time to linger on it compared to keeping up with Astrid.

Even he had not realised that Stormfly could fly like this. He could still remember her from the arena, fed only just enough that she could fight but not so much that she could fight _well_ , kept just on the verge of muscle wastage by their questionable care. Astrid must have been training with her more than he realised for her stamina to be like this, and though Toothless was no slouch Hiccup could feel him having to work harder to keep up with Stormfly’s pace.

He was just starting to fear that the ship had hidden on some islet or escaped them altogether when he felt the telltale shift of Toothless beneath him. The shift in the muscles, the readying of his body for battle or fire that was subtly different from even his fastest flight, and Hiccup bent down into his body and lowered their profile against the wind. Another glance across, and he saw the flick of Stormfly’s chin, the twitch, and saw Astrid glanced down with the same look of realisation.

To Hiccup’s eyes, there was still nothing on the horizon. But he knew better than to doubt Toothless.

“Go,” he said softly, the word lost to the wind and the rain, and let himself become an extension of Toothless. He moved the tail as Toothless needed, and they pulsed forward, so fast that it hurt at the base of his skull and the edges of his vision greyed. They dropped down through the rain, through layers of thin cloud that Hiccup had not even realised were there, as lightning flashed and thunder boomed through the sky above them, all but back-to-back.

A flicker, on the horizon. Hiccup squinted, unsure for a moment, but it looked like fire and out here, that could only be the Outcast boat.

Of course Toothless had been right.

He felt the build in Toothless as the flicker became a definite flame, cut now than then by figures crossing in front of it. By its faint light, and another timely flash of lightning, Hiccup could see the Outcasts fighting with lashing ropes and straining sails, their ship bucking in the waves like a living thing wilder than any dragon Hiccup had met. A touch of his hand to Toothless’s shoulder held back a blast, and they skimmed through the peaks of the powerful waves, the wind ripping back the hood from Hiccup’s face and tugging at the shield on his back no matter how flat he pressed. But _this_ speed, this dive, he knew that Stormfly could not emulate, and that he was a shadow in the darkness ahead of the others as he closed in on the boat.

Lightning and thunder, both together; Hiccup saw movement from one of the figures and thought he heard a shout across the waves. He had no idea if he had been spotted, but there was no choice. A shift, and Toothless obeyed, firing with a sound that rivalled the thunder and a flash that made the lightning pale.

The mast of the Outcast’s boat exploded into fire and shrapnel, the sail becoming a sheet of flame as it slapped down. Hiccup peeled up, unable in the dark to tell if he was being fired upon, drawing out of the range of the light and looking back to see the Outcasts throwing the unsalvageable remains of the sail overboard. He tried to count the figures, knowing that his night vision was shot and doing what he could with his remaining skills. He had at most a minute before Astrid caught up with him, probably less; he looked about the figures on board and thought that he recognised Savage, lit by the fire around.

If there were to be deaths, perhaps just one would suffice; Savage seemed to be among Alvin’s closest fighters, and it seemed likely that he was the leader of the group. Hiccup shifted his weight, locking Toothless onto Savage and making clear his intentions, even as he tasted acid in the back of his throat and felt more disgusted with himself than he ever had before.

He did not have time to fire. Savage snatched at another figure, dragging them to their feet, and he recognised Heather’s scream. A tussle, something with rope, and the next thing that he knew the stone anchor of the ship had been thrown overboard, plunging into the black depths, and Heather’s scream was cut off as she was dragged beneath the water.

It was not even a thought. Hiccup slammed Toothless’s tail shut, and they dived down into the water. He heard the sing of crossbow bolts, or thought he did, but pressed himself to Toothless’s back and still felt the punch of the cold as they plunged beneath the surface. Toothless did something with his wings; Hiccup could feel it but not see it, feel the knife-like cold more than the wet as it cut through to his skin. Lightning flashed, half-illuminating the water and the pale blur of Heather’s face, then Toothless seemed to pulse in the water again and she was enveloped in the darkness of his wings.

Hiccup felt the wrench of teeth, the muscles in Toothless’s neck, then the rush of the water changed direction and with a great thrust they burst from the surface again, into the crashing wet of the air. The weight of Heather in Toothless’s grip made their flight different, not quite so nimble but not unsteady, and Hiccup looked round to see that the water had pulled them away from the Outcast vessel.

Stormfly cut down like a pale flash, and white-hot spitting fire rained down across the rear end of the Outcast vessel. Hiccup had to close his eyes against the searing light, but he saw crossbows being raised, and as well as human screams heard the shriek of a dragon against the sky.

A horn cut through everything, loud and long and piercing, and even the thunder that growled in its wake could not outdo it. Fire erupted in the darkness, Nightmare fire but from sea-level, not on the back of any Monstrous Nightmare, and Hiccup turned with a horrified realisation just in time for a flaming boulder to rocket through the air towards him.

He rolled, taking Toothless and Heather with him, and Heather screamed. The boulder missed, crashing down into the waves behind them, but it was followed by a volley of crossbow bolts and Toothless had to wrap his wings in to his body and flip backwards, plunging down almost to the surface of the sea again.

As the world seemed to roll on every axis, Hiccup caught sight of the island, little more than a spit of rock, by which they had found themselves. There was a bonfire on its surface, giving plenty of light to the two catapults and dozen armed Outcasts waiting there, Alvin at their centre with his mail glittering. A larger ship was moored beside the island, and for a fleeting moment Hiccup considered firing upon it, but then he saw the ballista on its surface with the point of its enormous arrow gleaming sharp and focused straight upon him.

He rolled away again, sideways through the air in a way that was impossible for any dragon that was not Toothless, and the ballista was forced to hold back. Astrid had no such compunction, though, and Hiccup could see Stormfly against the sky as they streaked in, axe gleaming in Astrid’s hand. He screamed for her to stop, or perhaps just screamed, but it was inaudible beneath thunder that went on longer and louder than ever before.

It was Stormfly who dragged them away, away from another volley of crossbow bolts and another fiery boulder in its wake. Astrid screamed in fury, half a roar, and Hiccup could see her fighting to take Stormfly back down and the Nadder resolutely refusing. As Hiccup wheeled again, an untouchable target against the dark, he saw too late the way that the ballista turned and fired all in one stroke, striking like a snake into the sky.

Stormfly rolled away, losing altitude as she wheeled aside, and tumultuous wind or injury or both sent Astrid tumbling from her back and vanishing, faster than a breath, into the darkness of the sea.

Fire erupted on either side of Hiccup, and from out of nowhere both Monstrous Nightmares ripped out of the sky. Snotlout and Hookfang poured down fire upon the small island; the Outcasts dove beneath shields and greatshields, darted away from weapons, but the siege weapons themselves withstood the flame. Runa and Girl Hookfang swept straight past, streaking down towards the water in a billow of flame that served to hide exactly where she was in a glare of heat and light, then abruptly the fire was gone and she was lost in the darkness, nothing but a triumphant Nightmare’s roar telling that they were still there.

They had Astrid. They had to, he knew, or Runa would not fall quiet nor would Girl Hookfang have the audacity to roar.

“Snotlout!” Hiccup shouted, his throat raw and stinging, as Snotlout streaked straight upwards into the sky. A moment later, he too was gone, dragon invisible against darkness and leaving only after-images on Hiccup’s eyes, and Hiccup looked back to see the small Outcast boat being hauled in beside its larger kin, crossbows handed out, the units together making a defence that Hiccup knew they could not crack.

Runa seemed to appear from the darkness beside him, Astrid clutched against her. “Hiccup!” she shouted. “We have to retreat.”

“No!” Astrid’s axe was still gripped in one hand, even as she struggled against her mother’s hold with the other. The wound on her forehead was streaming blood down her face again, a shadow on her skin. “No! We have them! We have to take them!”

“I’m not risking any of you!” Hiccup shouted back. Astrid shot him a look of fury, but it seemed to melt almost immediately to desperation as he looked back without flinching, and then with a scream she redoubled her efforts to get free from Runa’s hold. “We pull back. Now!”

Toothless fired one last time, into the smouldering remains of the smaller Outcast boat, and he saw people jumping into the water. Not many, though, and he and Runa both had to pull away, Runa peeling up and Hiccup dropping down, as more bolts cut through the air towards them.

Lightning cracked and, a couple of seconds later, thunder followed. But its edge had gone, as if it knew that they had been defeated, and all that Hiccup could do was turn them back and pretend, as he passed Runa and Astrid, that he did not hear Astrid sobbing in her mother’s arms.

 

 

 

 

 

Stormfly rejoined them, Snotlout and Hookfang not far behind her, and they limped back south. The wind was in their faces, good for the Nightmares and Stormfly but bad for Toothless, and Hiccup could feel the struggle and the tiredness starting to seep in. Hiccup had to keep flexing his fingers and toes against the cold, but before they were even halfway back he was shivering violently, teeth chattering and shudders running right through his core. Only Snotlout had remained dry and might be in any better condition, he realised, and tried to urge them a little faster without risking leaving the Nightmares behind.

It was still long before dawn, at least, when they came into land. It would have been dawn, in the summer, but this was not summer and was dark and cold and terrible. Even Hiccup’s shivering was starting to abate, but he knew that was a bad thing, that the fewer and increasingly violent shudders were a sign that he was getting far too cold indeed.

Rather than take them to the village green, or the academy, Hiccup drew ahead and led them straight to the middle of the village, waving them down ahead of him. With tired eyes, he watched Snotlout land first, dismount and hurriedly lead Hookfang out of the way, before Runa bought Girl Hookfang in to land in turn. Astrid all but flung herself out of the saddle, stalking away until Stormfly came in to land in front of her and stopped her in her tracks. She raised a hand to the dragon’s cheek, then rested her head against Stormfly’s, before turning back to face Hiccup and Toothless again.

It was not hard to guess why. Hiccup came as low to the ground as he dared and tapped Toothless to have him release Heather. There was a muddy thud, and Hiccup quickly landed them a few feet to the side, though not far enough away to avoid Heather getting a blow from Toothless’s wing as they came down.

Toothless furled his wing, and Hiccup slid straight out of the saddle, even as Heather, hands still bound, managed to get to one knee. Astrid drew her axe as she marched towards them, blade glittering on the firelight.

“No, please,” said Heather. Her hair had come loose and stuck in black streaks to her face, which looked white in the darkness. Hiccup stepped between them, but Astrid just gave him a withering look and did not even raise her axe. “I had to go with them.”

“I’m sure you did,” Astrid said. “Before one of us here found you.”

“No, you don’t understand–”

Faster than Hiccup could have reacted, Astrid’s axe came down, overarm, and buried itself in the mud right beside Heather’s foot. Astrid pointed a shaking finger at her. “No,” she said. “I understand. And you understand exactly what you saw as well.”

Heather half-offered up her wrists. “Please,” she said. “They threw me overboard.”

“You worked with Alvin the _Treacherous_ ,” said Astrid. “What did you expect?”

“We’re taking this inside,” said Hiccup, sharply, to both of them. Astrid went to scowl again, but this time at least he felt sure as he met her eyes. “We need her in a fit state to answer questions.”

He could feel his metal foot slowly sinking into the mud to which Berk seemed to be turning, and had been soaked to the skin since before they had even been forced to turn back from the Outcasts. Astrid’s jaw set, but she nodded, and wrenched her axe out of the ground again. “The jail,” she said.

Part of him wanted to flinch from the idea, the bluntness of it all, but he supposed that it was the time for bluntness. Nodding, he took Heather by the upper arm and tugged her – rather more gently than he knew that Astrid would have done – to her feet.

“Snotlout!” he shouted, cupping one hand around his mouth. Snotlout, watching uncomfortably, jumped at the call. “Get back up to the Great Hall. Let your father know we’re back, and what with.” There was a good chance that the argument there would be ongoing, and that Stoick could not be spared, but Spitelout at least should be with them for this. As Snotlout hurried away, he spared a look for Heather again. She looked terrified, and there was a bruise starting to appear on her right cheek. “Come on,” said Hiccup, and heard the sadness in his own voice.

He knew the way around Berk even in the dark and driving rain, and it was not hard to lead Heather between houses and down slopes. Twice, she lost her footing, and he had to steady her, but they made it in one piece and he opened up the door, leading them into the swallowing cold.

“Hiccup, please, you have to listen to me,” she said. Her hands grabbed at the front of his tunic, and she pulled him so that they were face-to-face. “I know that I lied, I’m sorry, but I’m not one of them. They made me work for them.”

He didn’t know what to do. Had no idea what to do with a young woman begging him, clutching his tunic, and might have stood there looking at her in bewilderment for even longer if it had not been for Astrid wrenching Heather away and slamming her up against the metal bars of the cell.

“We’ve had days of your lies,” said Astrid. “This time? You’re going to listen to _me_.”

She slammed her axe down on the table just inside the jail door, grabbed the keys off their peg, and unlocked the first small cell. She all but flung Heather into it, and the only thing that Hiccup could think of was to grab a couple of the blankets folded up on the side, even as Astrid slammed the door closed and turned the key in the lock.

Hiccup passed the blankets through. “Wrap up in these. I’m going to get a fire going.” As Astrid looked sideways at him, he added: “For everyone’s sake.”

That, at least, Astrid did not seem to begrudge him. Hiccup first lit the lantern beside the door, hands clumsy on the flint and steel but finally letting practice win out, then set about building up a fire on the cold ash-smeared stone that stood beneath the vent in one corner of the building.

Heather must have gone to speak again, because Astrid slammed the flat of one hand against the bars. “Leave it,” she said. “Wait until Spitelout gets here.”

“They have my parents!” Heather blurted. Hiccup looked up sharply from the kindling and small pieces of wood that he had readied. “I wasn’t travelling to meet them. I was travelling _with_ them. The Outcasts have my parents, and they said that if I get them the book, then they’d let us go.”

“The book?” Hiccup straightened up. “What book?”

“The Book of Dragons,” said Heather. She kicked off her sodden boots, and pulled off her leather satchel, but did not seem able to bring herself to peel off her wet tunic or leggings as well. “Alvin said that it had to be the Haddock copy. That it was the only one that would do.”

“Why would he say that?” said Hiccup.

“Don’t bother,” Astrid said sharply. “It’s probably more lies.”

“What do I have left to gain by lying to you?”

“The question is what you have left to lose,” Astrid shot back. Heather flinched.

He needed to get home, to double-check what had been said, but he did not want to do so until there was somebody else here. It was not hard to see that Heather was desperate and Astrid furious, and there was no way that it would end well if he left them by themselves. Hands shaking, Hiccup knelt back down and quickly finished building up something of a fire, taking the steel and flint from the table and striking it until it caught. After that it was easy to busy his hands and quiet his mind by working on the fire, not quite blocking out the sound of Astrid pacing or of Heather’s teeth chattering.

“There,” he said, standing up again. “This place is well-insulated. It will help.”

By the time that he turned, Heather had sunk to her knees, which he could not help thinking would not be ideal on the stone floor either. There was a wooden chair, and he considered giving it to her, but the silence was fragile enough and he did not want to risk it now. Instead he squeezed handfuls of water from the sleeves of his tunic, while Astrid’s pacing continued. When he glanced up, he could see her shivering as well, for all that she tried to suppress it.

It seemed like an eternity before the door pushed open, any approach muffled by the rain outside, and Spitelout stepped in. He was frowning, and took in the jail at a glance; Hiccup was more surprised to see Anna and Elsa close behind him. Elsa looked drawn, more disappointed than angry, but Anna’s jaw was clenched and she stood almost defiantly beside the fire.

“Well, lassie,” said Spitelout. He closed the door, turned to face Heather, and folded his arms over his chest. “You underestimated us, hmm?”

“I…” Heather trailed off, though whether it was because of another bout of shivers Hiccup could not say. “I just did what I was told to do.”

Spitelout grabbed the single chair, pulled it opposite Heather’s cell, and sat down heavily onto it. Arms refolded. “Oh, this has got Alvin’s stink all over it. So you were sent here to spy, hmm?”

“No. Not to spy. Alvin only wanted the Book.”

Spitelout glanced over at Hiccup, eyebrow raised. “Your new Book of Dragons?”

If he were honest, Hiccup was surprised that Snotlout knew about that Book, let alone that Spitelout did. “No,” he said. “The Haddock one.”

“I’ll go and check,” said Anna tersely.

“No.” Elsa put a hand on her shoulder, and even Anna softened at the touch. “I will go.” Her voice dropped. “I know the house well.”

Anna paused for a moment, then nodded. As she turned, Elsa caught Hiccup’s eyes, and he did his best to look supportive. He would not blame her if stepping away was her way of dealing with what had happened; she had not been the one vocally championing Heather, as Hiccup had, but it had been pretty clear that she had trusted her. Had even considered telling her about her magic, and only just held back from it. The door closed quietly in Elsa’s wake, and Anna shifted, setting her feet hip-width apart and looking as ready for a fight at Hiccup had ever seen her.

Doubtless some of that anger would be meant for him as well, once this was over. A certain amount of _I told you so_ , but mostly anger that her sister had been threatened, if he knew Anna.

“So,” said Spitelout. “Alvin sent you to get the book, and you agreed.”

“I had to,” Heather said. “They have my parents. We were all captured, and Alvin said,” she took a deep, shuddering breath, eyes fixed on the floor at Spitelout’s feet, “he said that Hiccup would want to help me. He told me that I needed to get information from Hiccup. He was sure that Hiccup would try to escape somehow, and told me to go with him. When I got here, I was to get the book, and meet with the boat that would be on the beach east of the arena on the night of the new moon.”

Alvin had predicted it all. Hiccup felt sick to his stomach; was he that predictable? Both in wanting to help someone, and in wanting to escape? Or was that not just the natural thing to do?

“And when Hiccup got to Outcast Island, he put you in the cell with him.”

She shook her head. “He’d held us for nearly half a moon while he was planning. My parents in one cell, me in another. I could hear them, but we couldn’t see each other. They moved me to different cells one day, and that was when Alvin told me what I had to do if I wanted to see my parents again. They bought in Hiccup and Elsa four days later.”

“That’s how long it took them to get to Frigg’s Hearth and back by boat,” said Hiccup, although his tongue felt thick in his throat. That part, he had to tell; he was the only one in the jail who knew it. “When Alvin went looking for me.”

So Alvin had been expecting to find Hiccup and Stoick both together. Hiccup wondered what his plans would have been if they _had_ both been there, but was not wholly sure that he wanted to know.

“And you followed through on your orders to make him feel sorry for you.”

Heather shuddered again. “I told him as much truth as I could. My father is a skald. My mother trades. We travel from season to season and try to winter on one island. The island we had been on couldn’t support a skald for winter, so we were trying to get south ahead of the close of sailing.”

“Aye, well, lies that are mostly truth are easier to tell,” said Spitelout. He made it sound almost neutral, barely a flicker of judgement behind it. “And when Alvin was having Hiccup work with the dragons.”

“I didn’t know that was coming, I swear it. I’d never even been close to a dragon before.” She looked up and straight at Hiccup, eyes wide. The bruise on her cheek was slowly darkening. “Please, Hiccup, you have to tell them.”

Spitelout held up one hand, fist clenched, for silence; Hiccup knew better than to speak. “Tell me about it,” he said.

“It was the second day that Hiccup was there,” said Heather. Her voice trembled, but she finally dared to raise her eyes to look Spitelout in the face. “Alvin came to get Hiccup to work with the dragons again, and Hiccup said it would be faster if Elsa were there as well. Alvin let Elsa out of the cell, and had them take me out as well. They marched us all down to the dragon cells. Hiccup said that if he was going to show me how to approach the dragons safely, and let the Outcasts see too, he wanted information from Alvin first.” She shook her head. “You _know_ this! How can I lie to you about what Hiccup and Elsa were there for?”

So that they knew what it looked like when she told the truth, Hiccup knew, but did not speak. Spitelout just kept looking on impassively, kept sitting beside the fire, looking warm and comfortable while Heather knelt on the stone floor and shivered beneath wet blankets. “All right,” he said. “So let’s go on to what they didn’t see. What happened tonight.”

“I waited until I was alone,” Heather admitted. “Then I packed up my things, put the book in the satchel, and left. Made my way down to the beach. I almost fell on the cliffs.” She swallowed. “They were waiting for me on the beach. They made me show them the book before they let me on board, and they put it in a waterproof box they’d bought for it.”

There went any lingering hope that it might still be with her, Hiccup supposed. But the satchel looked pretty much empty anyway, a sad pile of leather beside her. The horn she had taken from Alvin’s chambers was still on her belt, just visible at the edge of the blanket.

“They sat me down and told me to keep my mouth shut and try not to fall overboard. Then one of them saw something.” Her eyes flicked to Astrid for a second, then away again. “They saw Astrid, and caught her. They tied her up, and when we were out to sea a way, they threw her overboard.” This time when she looked up, she kept her gaze there, pleading to Astrid’s stone eyes. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop them, they would have thrown me over too. I knew that you would be more likely to survive than I could. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

Astrid did not say anything, although Spitelout shot her a glance as if offering her the opportunity. When it became clear that Astrid would not reply, Heather lowered her eyes again.

“They kept sailing, even though the weather was getting worse. Savage told me that if I went overboard, nobody would bother trying to get me. They moored on this little island, and Alvin was there. He said something to Savage… I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember thinking that the weapons there had to mean they expected dragon riders coming after them. And you did.” Finally, she looked at Spitelout again. Her shivering had slowed as the room became, not warm, but bearable. Especially by Berkian standards. “When you did, Savage said that I might as well be of use as one last distraction. He tied my hands together,” she proffered them up from beneath the blankets for a moment, “with the rope of the anchor, and threw it overboard.”

He could remember her scream, cut short by the water. Hiccup was not sure that it was possible to fake a scream like that.

The door opened, and he jumped before realising that it was just Elsa. She had something wrapped in whaleskin in her arms, and his heart leaped, but she caught his eye and shook her head. “It is gone,” she said. “It was not on the shelf in your father’s room, with the books.”

She unwrapped the bundle to reveal towels, and passed one to Hiccup and one to Astrid without comment. There was a third one in the bundle, though, and she stepped up to the bars to reach through and offer it to Heather, still wearing that sad and vaguely disappointed expression.

Astrid sighed, but did not speak, and Anna frowned. Heather looked up again into the silence, and realised what Elsa was offering her. Looking wary, she rose to her feet, dropped the blankets away, and then walked back to the bars to accept the towel from Elsa’s hands. To even Hiccup’s surprise, Elsa followed it with a fresh set of clothes, folded on top of a second blanket, which Heather took hastily and with astonishment in her gaze. She backed away from the bars again, perhaps worrying that Astrid, who shifted, might take them from her.

It took Hiccup a moment to recognise the haunted, shocked look on Heather’s face – it was the same one that Elsa had often worn, in those earliest days, when she was amazed that she was being treated like a human. His stomach turned over uncomfortably.

“Thank you,” said Heather, half-breathless, with her eyes fixed on Elsa. Elsa held her gaze for a moment, then lowered her eyes and stepped back behind Spitelout, still not saying a word. When she drew close to Anna, Anna wrapped a hand protectively around her arm again. “I…” she broke off, coughing.

“I’ll get some water,” said Hiccup. At least it would not be saltwater this time.

“No,” Spitelout said. Hiccup looked at him, aghast, and pure fear flashed in Heather’s eyes. He leant forward, leaning on one knee, to address her. “You talk to us, then you get water.” Heather’s hands started shaking, enough for the whole pile of blankets, clothes and towel that she held to tremble. “You’re going to tell us everything that you saw or heard on Outcast Island. Every person you saw, every weapon they carried, every word that they said. You’re going to give us information.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Oh, I think that you know more than you think you do,” said Spitelout. “And you’re going to tell me everything.” He turned in his chair, and looked around the others. “Go on, kids, head on up to the Great Hall. They’re coming close to their decision. This’ll just be informing what we do next.”

“You shouldn’t have to do this by yourself,” said Hiccup quickly. He was not comfortable with the idea of leaving Heather alone with Spitelout. Even after everything that she had done, how badly she had betrayed Berk, he wanted to be sure that they treated her better than Outcast Island had.

But Spitelout turned in his chair and looked at him sternly. “Then get your father to send someone down and join me. I think I can manage one little lass, don’t you?”

It was a tone that broached no arguments. With deep regrets, Hiccup nodded, and wrapped his cloak around himself as tightly as he could before turning back to the door again.

 

 

 

 

 

Runa had been waiting for them outside, with the message that she had sent Snotlout to put all of the dragons away save for Toothless. She announced that she was taking Astrid home, despite Astrid’s protests, to see to her injuries, but Hiccup promised that he would let his father know that they both did their part. From the look in Runa’s eyes, it was not what she cared about hearing. Elsa and Anna stayed with him as they trudged back up the hill to the Great Hall, and it took Toothless to lever the door open against the wind without making as big a spectacle as Astrid had managed.

Of course, that did not stop people from turning and speaking out, and someone shouted Stoick’s name. Rather more of a clear space appeared when Toothless took it upon himself to shake the water from his scales, scattering anyone even remotely nearby. Stoick appeared through the crowd not long after, relief on his face, and Hiccup just nodded in greeting.

“We’ve got her,” he said.

“So Snotlout said,” Stoick replied. He ushered them to the side of the doors, then turned back to the crowd and cupped his hands around his mouth. “All right! We have our decision, and now you can see that we have more information to come, as well. Phlegma, stay with me. The rest of you, go home, and get some sleep. The night is nearly over.”

Hiccup was not even sure whether he felt tired or not. Weary, certainly, and cold and sore, but his brain seemed to be moving too slowly for him to even know whether he felt honest tiredness or not. He leant against one of the pillars as people filed out, some looking askance at him, fewer nodding in something approaching respectful acknowledgement.

It took a long time for people to leave, as it always did. Over half of the village had probably been there, and it was scores of people that trailed past. Anna squeezed Elsa’s arm where they stood beside him, and he saw Elsa sway into her sister for support. After what felt like an eternity, everyone was finally gone save for Phlegma waiting beside them, and Stoick heaved closed the enormous wooden doors.

Silence filled the hall, so deep that it echoed. When Stoick turned back, it was not the face of the chief that he wore, and he hurried over to take Hiccup by the shoulders. “Are you all right? Snotlout said you were all accounted for, and you bought the girl back.”

The girl; already her name seemed to have been stripped from her. “We’re fine,” Hiccup said. “And yes, we bought Heather back. But Alvin knew we’d pursue him. He’d set up an island with heavy defences, too much for us to get through without taking injuries. Possibly losing someone.”

Stoick’s lips pressed tighter together. “Then you did the right thing. Where are the others?”

“Runa took Astrid home, and Snotlout’s with the dragons. We put Heather in the jail. Spitelout’s in there at the moment, but someone else should be as well.” He could not help a desperate look at Phlegma. For all that she hated the Outcasts, for all that they had taken from her, Hiccup knew her to still have a fair nature. It was necessary to run the stores. Spitelout was a fighter, though, through and through, and could have his tempers. They all knew it.

How much Phlegma read, he did not know, but she nodded. “I’ll go, Stoick. You’ve been leading the discussion all night.”

“Thank you,” said Stoick. Hiccup could hear the weariness in his tone, as well. Even with Phlegma, Spitelout and Gobber to help, at this time of year in particular there was always a lot to do. What was happening with the Outcasts could only make it worse. He looked over to Hiccup. “Do you want to go home?”

“Could we sit down for a bit, first?” Despite having been in the saddle for hours, he felt as if he had not sat down in days.

When Stoick nodded, Hiccup turned straight for the nearest bench, pushed up against the wall to make room for the meeting. He flopped down onto it, wishing he could lean back and settling for leaning his elbows on his knees, and pushed off his sopping cloak. Elsa and Anna sat down on one side, and then the wood creaked as Stoick sat down on the other.

“What did they decide?” said Hiccup. He suspected that he already knew.

“To take the fight to the Outcasts, and soon,” Stoick said. His hand came to rest on Hiccup’s back, warm and heavy but not quite comforting. Hiccup rested his forehead on his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“This wasn’t your doing,” Hiccup replied. His own voice sounded strange and distant. It was Alvin’s doing; that, or it went back further, right to the founding of Outcast Island and its use as a place of banishment. “It’s… it’s what has to happen, now. And maybe Heather will know something that can help.”

“Was it information she was sent for?”

“Information, maybe. But Alvin wanted our Book of Dragons. _Ours_ ,” he added more firmly, looking up to Stoick again. He could see the shadows beneath his father’s eyes, the furrows in his brow. “The Haddock Book of Dragons. Apparently he wanted it specifically.”

Stoick frowned. “Our book?” he muttered.

It was an insult to a family, to take their Book of Dragons, but Hiccup had not exactly been quiet about the creation of the new book and Mildew would have known about it. There was more information in the new book than in the Haddock one, in any of the old ones, short of going through all of Bork’s old notes. And Alvin would not waste something like this on a mere insult; there had to be something about that book in particular that he wanted.

It took a moment for something to stir in the depths of Hiccup’s mind. “Skrills,” he said.

“What?” said Stoick.

“Skrills. That’s what makes the Haddock Book different. Alvin probably knows about the new book, but not about what we’ve put into it. He couldn’t guarantee that it had the information about Skrills.”

“The Berserkers,” said Stoick immediately.

“They – _shit_ ,” said Hiccup, as a flash of memory rose. “At one point while I was in the room, Savage started saying they had a reply from the ‘Buh’ but Alvin cut him off. I didn’t think anything of it. Another of the Outcasts or something. But it could have been the Berserkers.”

“It could be that Alvin is looking into how the Berserkers used to control the Skrills,” said Stoick, “compared to how we treat them now.”

“The two are completely different. We don’t know what methods they used, but they will have been cruel,” Hiccup said. There was no way that the Berserkers could have been kind, and the only other way to fight with a dragon would be to break them. “They won’t work with what we do.”

“Maybe he intends to compare the two,” said Stoick grimly. “See which one he prefers.”

“We can’t let him take any more dragons.”

“I know.” Stoick rubbed Hiccup’s back. “I know.”

Hiccup dropped his head back to his hand again. It wasn’t much use pretending that the sting in his eyes was due to the seawater, and he knew that he would not be able to sleep with the images of fire and steel still so fresh in his mind. It was a moment before he managed to say anything at all.

“Dad… how did Alvin know about the Skrills, in the Haddock book? Was it common knowledge?”

He glanced up; Stoick’s eyes seemed even more sad than before. “No,” he admitted. “Alvin and I were friends, once. Back when he was Alvin the Honest, and we went through the arena together. But that was a long time ago. Probably better to think of him as a different person altogether than he was then. It’s been a generation,” Stoick’s hand slipped up to run over Hiccup’s wet hair, “after all. Now come on, let’s get you home and dry. We’ll worry about Heather once the sun comes up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Props to Synapse, who spotted Savage talking about "the Buh" back in chapter 15 and thought there might be something more to come of it.
> 
> When I was plotting this chapter, I almost thought I'd worked myself into a corner - if every family had a Book of Dragons, why would Alvin not just use the information out of his own? Then I realised that by the same stroke, every family's one would be a little different, and Stoick hearing about Skrills from his grandfather gave me a reason to have information about Skrills in the Haddock book as well.


	28. Chapter 28

By sunrise, he had still not slept. He had sat on his bed and truly intended to try to sleep there, but had not even been able to lie down. Dragging blankets over beside Toothless on the large slate sheet, he sat and half-drowsed, in fits and starts until the fire and the icy water welled up in his thoughts again. As soon as he heard stirring beyond the walls, he got up, pulled on fresh clothes, washed his hands and face for about the third time since returning home, and trotted downstairs.

The fire was low and cold. Without talking, and with only a couple of murmurs and clicks of his tongue to Toothless, Hiccup built it up, put together some porridge to heat up, and went to fetch fresh water. When he returned, Elsa was awake and dressed, shadows beneath her eyes and rubbing nervously at her wrists.

“Morning,” said Hiccup. From her sad smile, it was clear that Elsa knew why he had not said _good_. “You want something to eat?” Elsa hesitated, then shook her head. “Yeah, my stomach’s in knots as well.”

It probably meant even more for Elsa to refuse food than for him to do so. But Hiccup nodded, and poured out water for them instead. Milk would have been better, to at least put something in their stomachs, but they did not have any right then. Perhaps he would ask Elsa whether they could work out some way to keep it cool within the house and stop it from turning.

He filled a costrel with water, checked the porridge was cooked, and pushed his hair out of his face. “All right, strange question,” he said, turning to Elsa, “but do you have a spare set of underwear?”

Elsa frowned. “Yes,” she said slowly.

Hiccup fished out a tray and a waterproof sheet from under the table. “Good. We’re not the Outcasts, and I’m not treating Heather like the Outcasts treated us all. Water, food, fresh underwear even if we can’t spare a full change of clothes. And I’m going to take her somewhere that isn’t the jail to talk to her.”

“Have you spoken to your father about this?” said Elsa.

Hiccup winced, then looked round guiltily as the door to the back bedroom opened. “No,” said Stoick. He looked between them, but when his eyes settled on Hiccup they were tired as well. “But it sounds sensible. Perhaps except for taking her out of the jail.”

“I’m going to call up the rest of the dragon riders,” Hiccup said. “And I’m going to have Toothless there. She can’t outrun him, whatever happens.”

“It is always a risk.”

He shrugged. “One that I think is worth it. Dad, I _really_ want to push that we aren’t like the Outcasts. That we want to help her, not punish or threaten her. And if we go to…” he cast around. “To Girl Hookfang’s barn, and I just sit on the floor with her and talk to her, I really think she’ll respond better to that.”

“She might talk more,” said Stoick. “But do you think that she’ll give you the truth?”

“I don’t know. But it’s like… it’s like her songs. The ones her father sang for the Berserkers, and for their enemies. It’s all different views on the same truth. There’ll be something there.”

If he thought that they had more time, he would allow her to sleep as well, something which he was quite sure that Spitelout and Phlegma would not have given her the opportunity for. As it was, he suspected that even Astrid’s injuries would not give him much reason to delay, and that it would be best for them to strike before Alvin could potentially find out anything from the Book.

He wondered whether Dagur had been there. Probably not; it was not like Dagur to miss an opportunity to gloat. And Savage’s message had sounded more like the reply had come by boat. If they were really lucky, they might be able to get to the Outcasts before the Berserkers got there.

It was madness, sailing in the winter when the seas were like this. But it seemed that madness was widespread in the archipelago lately.

“Would you come?” he said, drawing himself out of his thoughts and looking to Elsa. She was back to wearing a long skirt and sleeves again, something that had been slowly leaving her as the summer had turned to autumn, and her hair was scraped back more tightly than before.

It surprised him somewhat when she nodded. “Yes. I will come.”

“Thank you.”

Anna stepped out of the room in turn, taming the second half of her hair into a braid. “I’m coming too,” she said.

“Of course,” Hiccup said. “You’re part of the academy.”

She had been right, as well. Astrid had been right, and Anna had listened to her, in a way that Hiccup had not been able to. Just one more person that he needed to apologise to, and it worried him more than a little that he was not sure exactly how angry Anna was. It was not just that he had known her for less time; it was that she was not showing the anger.

Elsa slipped back into the room, and Anna set about helping herself to a bowl of porridge. She did not look too enthusiastic about it, and honestly Hiccup was relieved that at least one of them was able to eat. He hunted down one of the buckets that they used to serve Toothless’s fish, and managed a smile when Toothless’s flaps perked up.

“Sorry bud, not for you. But we’ll make a stop at one of the dishes on the way.”

“Hiccup,” Stoick said. He was pulling on the fur cloak as Hiccup looked round. “There’ll be a meeting at sundown. War Council. I’ll need all of the riders there.”

“All riders, or those of us who have permanent dragons?” he picked apart carefully.

Stoick paused, hands lingering on the clasp of the cloak. A year might not have been that much of a difference at any other time, but they both knew that those who ‘had permanent dragons’ meant the six of them, the first to fly, who had seen the Red Death. The others, no doubt, also remembered it a lot better than Hiccup did. “Those of you who were on Dragon Island,” he said.

Hiccup nodded. The Speed Stingers had been one thing, and only one of the three younger riders had been involved in that. He was not sure he would be able to turn Runa away if she insisted on coming as well, though.

“And Anna,” Stoick added, with a respectful nod. Although she came under no other group, Hiccup suspected that the only way to keep Anna away from the meeting would have been physical restraint. At considerable risk to the one doing the restraining.

But Anna did not look offended to be added separately. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be there.”

Like a queen, he supposed. “All right. Are we ready to go?”

“It’s still raining,” said Stoick. “Pretty hard.”

“Well, I’m not waiting till spring. Elsa?”

Almost immediately, Elsa was stepping back out of the room, little-used cloak in her hand and a bundle of fabric in her arms. “I also have socks,” she said.

Probably also a good idea, in Berk. Hiccup motioned for her to put them on the tray, nudged them over beside the porridge where they might absorb some of its heat, and then draped the waterproof sheet over everything. He grabbed his cloak from by the door to pull on, looped the empty fish bucket over his arm, and picked up the tray.

“Ready?” he asked Anna and Elsa. Anna finished scraping the last of the porridge into her mouth, dropped the bowl the appropriate bucket beside the fire, and scrambled to grab her cloak with a vague affirmative sound. Elsa simply nodded. “All right, then,” Hiccup said. “Let’s do this.”

He stopped off briefly at the feeding stations that had once been used as warning torches, and made himself remember how far they had come. In rain rather than snow, it was at least easier to scoop some of the fish into the bucket, although the smell was getting a bit objectionable without overnight frosts to keep the fish cold. Toothless seemed to have no such qualms, rumbling to himself as he rooted around and snatched down fish.

Two of them, then, that could face breakfast. Hiccup smiled faintly.

“Here,” said Anna. “I’ll carry the fish.” When Hiccup looked surprised, she shrugged. “It’s for the hatchlings, right? And last I checked, you didn’t have three arms.”

“Some days, I think I’m lucky to have two. Thanks.”

When Toothless seemed to be mostly done, Hiccup clicked his tongue and nodded on towards Snotlout’s house, the closest to the centre of the village and to theirs. It was Adelaide who answered the door, waited for their explanation, and then hollered for Snotlout in a voice that would have befitted any member of the Jorgenson family. Snotlout came racing out of one of the back rooms, then slowed when he realised that it was Hiccup at the door.

“What?” he said. Adelaide took the opportunity to make herself scarce.

“We’re going to talk to Heather,” Hiccup said. Snotlout muttered something, folding his arms and looking off to the side. It might have been less annoying had he not been safely inside the dry of his house, while Hiccup and the others were outside getting rained on. “See what she’s got to say about the Outcasts. It’s academy business,” he added, more pointedly. “The Chief agreed.”

“Fine. I’m coming. Do I need Hookfang?”

“No, he can stay inside.”

Snotlout sighed dramatically, and took his time about retrieving his cloak and, apparently, choosing whether to put up the hood on his cloak or wear his helmet. He finally decided on the helmet, and joined them outside in the rain.

Once they had one person, it was easier. Fishlegs did not argue about joining then, although he did look nervous, and the twins were still yawning and blasé. But Hiccup had deliberately left Astrid’s house for last, and he felt his stomach turning over as he approached the house.

Elsa’s touch against his arm made him jump. “I will take the tray,” she said, quietly.

He looked down at the tray in his hands as if it had appeared there of its own accord. “Yeah.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed. “Thanks.”

He still had to clench his fist to stop it from shaking before he knocked at Astrid’s door. There was a long pause, and he wondered whether they knew or had guessed that it was him and were refusing to answer. Finally, though, Carr opened the door, grim-faced.

“I’m… looking for Astrid,” said Hiccup, as if that would not be immediately obvious.

Carr was generally an unassuming man, quietly competent, with whom Hiccup had never particularly tangled. But his voice was stonily cold. “I could guess.”

Yeah, that was pretty deserved as well. “The academy is going to be taking over talking to H- the prisoner.” Hiccup nodded to the others, but hated himself for holding back Heather’s name. He needed Astrid there, though, even if she was still furious with him as well. Needed her ears and her brain, and just to know that she was still there and still alive. As his hands threatened to shake again, he willed them to still. “I’d prefer Astrid joined us, as one of the academy.”

“Well, she won’t be coming,” said Carr, with such an air of finality that Hiccup winced. “She needs rest on those injuries. I wish you luck,” he added, perfunctorily, as he went to close the door.

“Dad!” Astrid ran to the front door and grabbed it, yanking it back open against her father’s hold. “Wait.”

There was a dressing on the side of her head, held in place with taut braids rather than a full bandage; Hiccup supposed that it would do as long as Astrid did not move too quickly. Which was admittedly quite something to ask of Astrid. Her face was still pale, making the bruises on her forehead and jaw stand out even more sharply, but the strength was back in the set of her jaw and the squaring of her shoulders again.

“The rest of the academy can handle this,” Carr said. He was not a particularly tall man, and Astrid was already most of the way to his height. And her attitude had always seemed taller. “You need to be careful on those injuries.”

“I won’t be doing acrobatics,” she retorted. “Besides, I can take Stormfly, and if anything physical needs doing then she can do it. I’m not missing what’s said.”

She was wearing clothes that he had not seen before, a rough tunic with long sleeves that seemed too large for her and bunched in places that Astrid would not usually have allowed. Too much loose fabric made a target to grab during sparring – she had thrown a few of them to the ground that way, over the years.

Carr glanced aside at them, shifted to block the doorway more, and lowered his voice. “Astrid,” he said, and when Hiccup recognised the father’s tone in it he realised just what an intruder to the scene he was. “Please–”

With a glance to all of them outside, Astrid slammed the door closed, but Hiccup had a suspicion that it was not actually the end to whatever discussion was taking place. Clearing his throat did not quite hide the sound of the heated argument starting up inside – an argument which, to judge by the timbre of the voices, Runa had just joined – and turned to the others.

“Anna, Elsa, Fishlegs, Tuff, could you head on over to Girl Hookfang’s barn and make sure there’s a large dry area that we can use? No giant hole appeared in the roof in the last couple of nights, anything like that?”

“Do you want a giant hole in the roof?” said Tuffnut, perking up. “Because that can totally be arranged, if–”

“No, we’re good, thanks,” Hiccup said quickly. “We just need it set up. Hang on,” he lifted the corner of the waterproof sheet over the tray, grabbed the bundle of clothes, and stuffed them beneath his arm. “There. Ruff, I need you with me because I want a woman who can stay with Heather while she gets changed;” he really hoped he was not going to regret that decision; “Snotlout…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be your muscle,” said Snotlout. “I mean, you obviously need someone to protect you from _that_ combat fiend.”

Less the sarcastic commentary, it was just about right, and Hiccup summarily ignored it. He paused for a second, just long enough to hear one final vehement comment that he thought was from Astrid, and waved the others away. He turned back to the door just in time for it to be snatched open again and Astrid, in one of her usual more fitted tops and her skirt, appear. She had her cloak in her hand, and looked him levelly in the eye.

“I’m coming,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Slamming the door closed again and pulling on the cloak, she shouldered past him and out into the rain. There was a stiffness on her left side, and when he glanced at her knee he could see the thickness of bandages. Astrid whistled, and Stormfly padded round from the woodshed.

“Actually,” Snotlout began.

He was almost certainly going to point out that the rest of them had not bought their dragons. “Stormfly can come,” Hiccup said.

“She’ll wait outside,” said Astrid, without looking round.

It was becoming rapidly apparent that Hiccup was not leading them anymore, and he had to stride to keep up with Astrid. “Actually, we’re escorting Heather somewhere else to talk to her,” he said. “Stormfly will be able to join us inside, as will Toothless.”

She grunted acknowledgement. Hiccup risked another look at her, the shadows beneath her eyes and her lips paler than usual. She must have lost more blood than he had realised. He wasn’t sure whether there was a brittleness about her, or whether that was just his fears trying to take actual form.

In either case, they made it to the jail without further talking, and Astrid shoved opened the door but stepped back to let Hiccup go in first. He did so, pushing back the hood of his cloak; Phlegma was nowhere to be seen, and Spitelout, standing, looked round in surprise at the sight of them. Heather was sitting in the furthest corner of the cell, blanket wrapped around her, clean clothes still folded on the bench at her side. Her eyes widened at the sight of Hiccup, and he could see both fear and hope in her expression.

Hiccup’s jaw clenched, but he forced himself to look at Spitelout calmly. “The Dragon Academy is taking over,” he said. It was perhaps the first time that it had felt so much like a title on his tongue. Perhaps it was that which made Spitelout look surprised, and a little affronted. “It’s been agreed with the Chief.”

Spitelout might have argued with Hiccup, but he knew better than to argue by proxy with Stoick. At the very least, he would need to take up objections with Stoick himself. With one last look at Heather, he nodded curtly. “Aye, well. I’ve got the information from her. I’ll go tell your father.”

He left smartly, ignoring Snotlout’s greeting along the way, and Hiccup stepped aside from the door. “Ruffnut, can you come in here with me? Thanks.”

“What do you want?” said Heather.

If Hiccup had not been able to sleep, he doubted that Heather had been allowed to. He produced the bundle of underwear and socks from beneath his cloak and bent down to put them just inside the cell. “Well, for a start, I’m going to step outside so you can get changed. Ruffnut’s going to stay in, because there’d be trouble if we left you completely unguarded. All right?”

Her eyes flicked between them and the clothes, then she nodded. Hiccup waited a moment longer, just in case she would say something as well, but it was not forthcoming.

“All right. Ruff,” he nodded, stepped back, and closed the door behind them. It was just in time to cut off whatever Ruffnut was starting to say, and after one concerned moment he decided that it was probably going to be fine, and left them to it. A glanced told him that Astrid had stepped aside and was stroking Stormfly’s neck, pausing and frowning as she ran her fingers over something that Hiccup could not see. He hoped it was not an injury.

Finally Ruffnut opened the door again, and stuck her head out. “Yo, Hiccup. What’s next, then?”

He stepped back in, grabbed the keys, and unlocked Heather’s cell. Even in fresh clothes, she had her arms wrapped around herself and was watching them warily.

“All right,” he said. “Heather, we just want to talk to you.”

“I’ve been talking all night.” Her voice sounded worn, dry.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’d let you rest if I could, but we might not have the time. If you can tell me what we need, then I’ll get people to watch who will let you sleep for as long as you need.” He would probably not be able to keep watch himself, but folks like Bucket – no, not Bucket, he would be busy managing the sheep at this time of year, but others who tended to be gentler – would be available. “We have water waiting for you,” he added, and saw a flicker of hope there. “And food. We’re not the Outcasts.”

Heather looked around herself and snorted. That might have been deserved.

He took a deep breath. “I know, we haven’t been the best, but please believe me that was out of panic. And I speak from experience when I say that at least it’s not damp. Please, come with us, and maybe we can help you as well.”

The look in her eyes communicated without words that she had her doubts, but she nodded. Grabbing the blanket, she draped it over her head and shoulders, and Hiccup chided himself for not bringing a spare cloak to keep off the rain. “Sure,” she said. “Lead on.”

 

 

 

 

 

Heather looked surprised and confused to be led to a barn on the edge of the village, and only more deeply confused when Hiccup explained that it was Girl Hookfang’s den, of sorts. But it was dry, there were still some bales of hay being stored in there that the hatchlings liked to climb on or occasionally set fire to, and the number of dragons in there made it permanently warm. The hatchlings fluttered or scampered over to meet them, chirping and trilling, except for the one which had apparently made itself comfortable lying with its head on Anna’s feet.

“Come on,” said Hiccup. He dragged a couple of bales of hay opposite each other, in a rough approximation of seats, and took off his cloak to hang on a helpful hook on the wall. "Sit down.”

Heather did so, albeit slowly. She spread the blanket over the hay, revealing that she had kept the satchel and the horn from her father, then sat down. Hiccup took the tray of food from Elsa and placed it in front of Heather, who gave him another dubious look and then glanced around them.

“It’s all right. You can eat.” Hiccup gestured Toothless over, and the dragon lay down beside him, on his front with tail lashing and eyes fixed. With one more look, Heather pulled off the waterproof sheet and all but dove into the food, barely pausing between shovelling the porridge into her mouth and drinking the water. As she emptied it, Hiccup rose to his feet, slipped it from her hands, and made quick mental calculations before choosing Fishlegs and crossing to him. “Hey,” he said, quietly. Fishlegs looked uneasy. “Could you fill this up, and just… grab a bucket of water, as well?”

They could try to keep the hatchlings out of it, at least. Fishlegs looked relieved and hurriedly left, and Hiccup returned to the hay bale just as Heather was scraping the last of the porridge out of the bowl.

“Sorry if it wasn’t hot any more,” said Hiccup, sitting down again. “Weather wasn’t in our favour.”

“It’s fine,” said Heather, still with food in her mouth. She swallowed, looking guilty, and covered her hand with her mouth. “I mean… sorry. And thank you.”

He settled his hands on his knees. “It’s what we should have done.”

Perhaps it was the softness in his voice that made her look away, then bend down to put the bowl back on the floor again. “No. You have every right to be angry.”

Hiccup almost went to say that he was not angry, but truth be told he was not sure whether that was true or not. At that moment, at least, he felt calm, focused, but he had felt angry and scared and worse over the past days. “I just want to know where to go from here,” he settled for. “What did Spitelout ask you about?”

“The Outcasts. Outcast Island. What I saw or heard. Every…” she shook her head. “Every detail.”

He nodded. “All right. Then we’ll leave that for now.” At the very least, she would be exhausted of thinking about it. Lies would be fresh in her mind, but if she were telling the truth then it would be better to give more details to rise to the surface. “Tell me about your parents.”

Heather looked pained. “Please…”

“First you said you were travelling alone, but then you said you were with your parents. What happened?”

“I told you,” she said wearily, but Hiccup held her gaze. He tried to put aside thoughts of the others, watching them from around the room, or the Nightmare hatchling that was trying to nose its way under Toothless’s tail. “We’d been on an island called Bedrock Bluffs, but they had a rough harvest and they couldn’t support a skald over the winter. We were using the currents to come south, and we were going to turn east and head further into the archipelago from here. Look for a larger island, or maybe just keep heading south and let my mother’s trading cover us for the winter. We hadn’t decided.”

He nodded.

Heather reached up and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Fishlegs reappeared, bucket in one hand and costrel in the other, and stood uncomfortably a couple of yards away from them. Even when Hiccup nodded for him to give Heather the water, he hesitated, until Hiccup raised his eyebrows pointedly. Fishlegs dived in, all but shoved the costrel into Heather’s hands and put the bucket at her feet, and hurried back.

“The weather was just about holding, so we headed south. We saw a boat just drifting, and thought that someone might be in trouble, so we went to see what was going on. There was no sign of the sail. But before we got close, this longship appeared from behind a clump of rocks, and… we were only in a karve, we couldn’t outsail them. We let them approach, hoping that they’d just see that we were merchants and let us go, but…”

She trailed off, shook her head, and tightened her hold on the costrel until her knuckles turned white. It wasn’t hard to tell that pushing further would upset her, and he deliberately drew back. “That was the Outcasts?” she nodded. “How many were there?”

“There were… ten? Twelve?”

He tried another tack. “Was the boat just under sail, or did they use oars?”

“They… both, at times,” said Heather. She half-frowned. “Why?”

“Do you remember how many oars there were?”

“Six on each side. And they had one person on each oar for five of the pairs,” she added, realisation dawning and the frown fading in the same moment, “but two people went aboard my family’s ship to guide it. Plus Alvin, giving orders.”

“Thirteen, then. Can you describe them to me? Men, women? Beards and pieces of armour?”

She did so, jumping from one to another in her description but painting a rough picture of the capacity of the group that had been sent to… well, he suspected that they had been sent to set up the boat with Venomspur and the dead man in and that Heather’s family had only had the misfortune to get caught up in it all. As she talked, Hiccup mostly stayed quiet, simply dropping in a word here or there to ask about whether they were helmeted, what weapons they carried, if any of them had spoken to her.

With time, Heather seemed to relax into it, even as the rain lessened outside. From his peripheral vision, Hiccup saw the others take up places standing or sitting around the edge of the room, mostly looking various shades of bored. He was pretty sure that Astrid was right behind him, and that she would not deign to sit no matter her injuries.

He drew her onwards to talking about Outcast Island, whether the people she had seen had been armed when they were just walking around – they had, and that matched his vague memories of the one time that Alvin had marched him through the hallways. They talked about the route to the cells where she and her parents had first been held, and the route between them and the cells where she had been put in with Hiccup.

It wasn’t as if he had ever been told how to interrogate someone. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure this really counted as an interrogation, just talking through what had happened, but he was keeping track of every detail that she said, watching for anywhere that she contradicted herself or said something that contradicted his own memory.

“I don’t see how this can help,” Heather said, finally, tiredly, as he tried to get her to pick through what she had eaten when she had been kept with her parents, and what she had seen any of the Outcasts eat.

Hiccup shrugged. “Fish, maybe not. But you said all the pieces of ling or cod were small?” he set his hands about a foot apart. “Smaller than this? And that there was turbot and flounder? That means–”

“That they’re only fishing on the coast, and not in deep water,” said Heather slowly. “Which means that either they don’t have the experienced fishermen, or they don’t have boats that can handle fishing rather than just travel.”

Or their priorities were elsewhere, but Hiccup did not voice that suggestion, just nodded. The little details had also been to put Heather at ease, and because it was the littlest details that were hardest to make up. But there really might be clues that helped in there; if only a limited number of the Outcasts had the skills to handle boats in deeper water or overnight, it would limit how much they could do. Until the Berserkers, and their considerable seafaring ability, got involved.

“It all helps,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Heather, we’re going to be attacking the Outcasts before too long, and–”

“Oh, come _on_ ,” said Snotlout, from his left. “You can’t just _tell_ her that!”

“Hiccup!” Astrid snapped.

He raised a hand to Snotlout, and glanced over his shoulder to see Astrid with a knife in her hand. Snotlout rolled his eyes and leant against the wall again, but Astrid did not move and Hiccup had to be the one to look away.

“–and when we do, we don’t want to hurt your parents. Now, I know that they’ll probably be in the cells, but we’ll need descriptions that mean we can identify them, even if it gets chaotic. Maybe even something that we can shout, that they would know to reply to in a certain way? I’ll give you a moment to think about it.”

He got to his feet, gestured for Toothless to stay still, and turned to face Astrid fully. Her hand was clenched around the handle of the knife, far harder than it should have been for effective use, but he tried not to look at it for too long. “Astrid, I need to ask you something,” he said, with a nod to the doorway. Her eyes flickered over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. All of the others and the dragons are still here.”

“Fine,” she bit out. She did not sheathe the knife as she looked towards her cloak, then the barely-drizzling weather outside, and decided against it.

Hiccup did not feel fully comfortable about walking outside while Astrid was two paces behind him with a knife, but he knew that was largely down to the situation bringing out the fear in everyone. He walked far enough away from the barn that the distance and rain would mask their words, and then turned to face Astrid again.

“She’s playing you,” said Astrid, before he could even open his mouth.

Instead, he sighed. “Why? How? What does she have left to lie about?”

“Her reason,” said Astrid simply. “I mean, her parents? Are you going to believe that?”

“Why do you think she’d be lying about that?”

“Because if I–” Astrid caught herself, looking away sharply, but he held his tongue and kept his gaze on her. His heart felt as if it were pounding against his ribs, but he forced himself to stay silent. “Because if I was trying to manipulate you, that’s what I’d say.”

“Wow.” He ran his hand through his hair. “That was… blunt.”

“Look, I…” Astrid looked down at the knife in her hand, weighing it, then finally sheathed it. She crossed her arms over her chest, but it was uncomfortable more than defiant, and that troubled line between her eyebrows was back again. “I know you, all right? And sure, you rescue people, it… seems to be what you do. But if that isn’t an option, and I needed to make you feel sorry for me, then yeah, I’d say something about parents.”

She might have been right. Hiccup knew that his complicated relationship with his father was nothing compared to how he felt about his mother. But it still didn’t hurt any less to hear it said. “You know me,” he echoed. “And Heather doesn’t. She wouldn’t know that.”

“You told the story about the buckle in front of her,” Astrid said. “That would be more than clue enough.”

He rubbed his mouth. “What do you want me to do?” He gestured vaguely, not really at the rain around them but at the world in general. “Torture her? Come up with some way of tricking the truth out of her? Honestly, this is the best that I can think of. Ask her about her parents, see if she can come up with descriptions.”

“You know we aren’t going to be capturing the Outcasts, right?” said Astrid bluntly. “We’re going to be killing them. How easy would it be for her to point out two dead Outcasts and claim that they’re her parents?”

“We can cross that bridge if we come to it. But I don’t want to kill unless it’s necessary, Astrid.” She scoffed. “And I don’t want any more people dead than is necessary. If killing one or two of the Outcasts is all it takes to break them, I would rather do that.”

“And in five years’ time, they’ll rebel again.”

“That–” he took a deep breath. “That’s off the topic. My father’s holding a war council at sunset, and we’ll be talking about our tactics then. Look, I asked you to step outside to ask if it’s ringing true, because,” he shrugged, feeling helpless again, “because you saw what I didn’t. And I do trust your judgement, always have.”

Astrid sighed. “I have my doubts about the parents,” she said, “but what she’s saying about their weapons, the layout, their boats… it doesn’t contradict itself. I’m still not sure. She’s a good liar, we’ve seen that. I wouldn’t rest everything on what she says.”

He supposed that did sound reasonable, and nodded. “We’ll treat it as secondary information. What Elsa and I saw will be more important. But nothing she’s said so far contradicts us, either.”

“I know.”

Not sure what else there was to say, he pointed back to the barn. “Come on, then. Let’s keep going.”

 

 

 

 

 

By the time they returned, Heather had put her satchel on the floor at her feet, and was squinting in the sunlight. Hiccup pulled the barn doors closed, but did not bar them, and she looked grateful as he took his seat once again.

Somewhat haltingly, she described her parents; it rang true, at least to him, when she gave details like how her mother wore her hair or the way that her father had scars on his left palm from where his hand had slipped while he had been carving his own bone flute. At one point, she shifted, and Hiccup thought that he heard a chinking sound, but then Heather was pulling out a stray bit of straw that had got above the blanket and might have been itchy.

“They were, well, when I last saw them they were just wearing rough plain clothes, you know, for sailing?” said Heather. “We’d all been in them for a while, so… I guess they’ll look pretty much like I did when you first saw me.”

She crossed her legs, and her toe knocked open the flap of the satchel. Smoke began to pour out, thick and grey, and within a few seconds had spread enough to envelop both her and Hiccup.

It was acrid, burning in his throat, and he started coughing. “What the–”

There were more clinking, ceramic sounds, and then Fishlegs shrieked and the smoke in the barn seemed to redouble itself. Toothless snarled, tail hitting the bale of hay on which Hiccup sat, and Hiccup stumbled to his feet trying to hold his sleeve over his mouth.

“Heather?” he shouted. “Guys? Can you see me?”

“The door!” Astrid shouted.

Light cut blockily through the smoke, and Hiccup saw a figure silhouetted there. They moved – turned, perhaps – and he squinted to see who it was, but then there was a crystalline glitter in the air and the figure slammed against an invisible barrier.

Something small and roughly spherical was flung out of the barn, over the top of the invisible barrier, trailing smoke behind it. He heard Astrid swearing, then a second small sphere followed the first.

“Where _are_ the bloody things?” Astrid shouted. “They’re these clay balls spewing smoke.”

“We need to get this outside,” said Hiccup. One of the Nightmare hatchlings had attached itself to his right leg, and was using claws. He thought he could feel blood trickling down his thigh. He pried it out, then hurried over to the doorway, not surprised to find that it was Heather looking in fear at the thin, clear sheet of ice.

The ice probably shouldn’t have surprised him, either.

He grabbed her by the arm, not too roughly but as hard as he dared, and turned back to the swathe of smoke that was the room. There were flickers of light here and there that he desperately hoped was only the hatchlings, who were not able to maintain flame for long yet.

“Outside! Now!”

“But – we can’t – the–” Heather looked back at the ice again, just in time for it to shimmer away and let the smoke continue spilling out into the air.

Suppressing more coughing, Hiccup pulled Heather out onto the grass outside, in the rain. He could see one of the objects that had been thrown clear, some sort of clay sphere still spewing smoke, and steered them out of the way. Heather’s feet were dragging, but when he looked at her it was more bewilderment and shock than anything else written across her features.

Rather to his surprise, Elsa made it out of the smoke next, striding out with her face set and lips pressed closely together. The others straggled out behind her, including Toothless and Stormfly, the hatchlings, and finally Girl Hookfang bringing up the rear. Snotlout doubled over, retching, while Ruff and Tuff clung to each other and coughed, seeming to breathe out smoke into the air as they did so. Hiccup’s eyes were streaming, but at least his chest did not feel so bad.

“What in Odin’s name are those things?” Astrid said.

Heather looked as if she was too frightened to find words, and Hiccup sighed and turned back to shout to the others to get clear of the smoke for now. Before he could say anything, though, Heather twisted, pulled, and her arm was gone from his grip. Her foot slammed into the back of his left knee and his stump, and he went down, stabs of pain lancing all the way down to toes that had not even been there for over a year. He made a choking sound, light flashing behind his eyes, and looked up in time to see Elsa run past him.

Not even able to get up yet with his leg still throbbing, he looked round just in time to see Heather turned to run as well. There was a sound like metal-on-metal, and a circle of ice shot from the ground, a clear ring stretching higher than any of their heads.

Heather stumbled back from it, just as Elsa reached her. Elsa spun her around and slammed her back against the ice, hands on her shoulders. “How do you do it?” she demanded.

“What? I don’t–” Heather looked sideways; she must have recognised that it was ice around her. “I don’t understand. Please.”

Hiccup pushed himself upright, keeping most of his weight on his right, and limped the few steps to the ice. Elsa’s hands were shaking on Heather’s shoulders, her eyes almost frantically searching Heather’s face.

“How do you do it?” Elsa demanded again. Heather looked at her in complete and desperate confusion. “The smoke – the magic! How do you do it!”

“It’s not _magic_ ,” said Heather, frantically. Elsa’s face fell, and she released her grip. “It’s just alchemy, it’s not…”

Something must have dawned; the ice was at her back, beneath her hands where she was pressing them desperately against the wall that held her.

“Oh, gods,” Heather said. Or at least, Hiccup was fairly sure; he could not hear the words, only see them.

Elsa stepped back, letting her hands fall away, and Heather slid slowly down the ice until she was sat against its base. “Alchemy?” she said. Her voice rang on the ice. “But this… the smoke…”

Points of snow appeared in the air around her, and ice glittered into place in her loosely braided hair. She whirled away from Heather for a moment, raised her hands, and deliberately clenched them into fists in front of her. There was a flash of light, and this time the gauntlets appeared fully formed in an instant. For a moment, she looked at them, then splayed her fingers and let them vanish just as quickly. She turned back to Heather again, face not visible from where Hiccup stood, and whatever passed between them he could not see it.

Then Elsa made a single, flat gesture, and the ice fell away again. Heather almost fell back, just about catching herself on her hands, still looking up at Elsa with confusion and awe and fear all vying in her gaze. Elsa turned away, from all of them, and left an icy trail in her wake as she walked away with her arms wrapped around her chest.

Hiccup limped over to where Heather was sitting in the mud, and extended a hand towards her. It didn’t manage to surprise or offend him when she looked at it fearfully.

“What is happening here?” she said.

“Berk is… more than we let on,” he replied.

“That was magic,” Heather said, with a weight behind the words. “That was… real magic. Not a trick, or… oh, gods.”

The fear was going from her eyes, but the shock was still in full flow. She blinked, seemed to see Hiccup’s hand afresh, and took it to allow herself to be pulled upright. “Where were you going to run?” he said. “The seas are too dangerous even if you could steal a boat. If you go south you’ll hit the Wildlands, and quite possibly wildings–”

“Wildlings?”

“More dangerous than Berk,” he said. “Trust me. You don’t want to go south.”

“I just – I just need to get back,” Heather said. “I did what they asked, I have to get my parents and go.”

“Do you really think they’re planning to release you?” said Astrid, appearing at Hiccup’s side. She was still moving stiffly, eyes reddened with smoke, and was holding the dressing to the side of her head with one hand. “If you’re willing to do this, then they obviously have all the control over you they could ever want. Why would they give that up?”

Heather swallowed.

“Heather,” Hiccup said, “we have reason to believe that the Outcasts are trying to research methods of using dragons other than the ones we have. We don’t know whether the ways the Berserkers once trained Skrills are even remembered, let alone whether they would work on other dragons, but–”

Pushing past him, Astrid grabbed Heather by the wrist. “You know something,” she said. “I saw it in your eyes. What is it?”

Hiccup could not say that he had seen anything at all, even a flicker, but he trusted Astrid on this as well. Heather seemed to crumple in front of Astrid’s anger, or perhaps in front of the trickle of blood that had seeped free from the dressing and was now making its way down her cheek.

“They have a Skrill,” Heather said. Hiccup felt as if his lungs had turned to stone. “They found in in a block of ice, to the north. I heard two of the Outcasts discussing it.”

“A frozen Skrill,” said Astrid. “A remnant of an extinct species. So what?”

“Skrills aren’t like most dragons,” said Fishlegs. Hiccup almost jumped from the suddenness of his voice beside them. “Their high body temperature means that they can survive being frozen in ice for years, even for decades. There’s a good chance that it will still be alive.”

“It’s just another dragon,” Heather said. “You can handle dragons! I saw it!”

Hiccup forced himself to breathe before the world started to swim. “That was what we needed,” he said. Everything else paled in comparison to it. “There’s our information. Come on, we’re going back to the jail.” His voice turned bitter. “Where you can get as much rest as you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the _School of Dragons_ online game, pre-Race to the Edge design Heather ran the 'alchemy' games and, essentially, did the chemistry parts of the science that the game discussed. That's the side that I've run with, and smoke bombs are just the beginning.


	29. Chapter 29

“You must not tell anyone else,” he told them all, gathered close together in the continuing rain. Heather stood beside him, head bowed, allowing him to keep hold of her arm and not even trying to pull away now. “Not your parents, not your siblings. The word _Skrill_ will not leave your lips; do you understand me? You want to talk about it, you come to my house to do so. At sunset, I need you all to come to the Great Hall, for a meeting. You won’t need your dragons.”

Mercifully, everyone mumbled agreement, and he sent Fishlegs to find someone that would be suitable to guard Heather for the day. With some misgivings, he asked Astrid to take Heather back to the jail, sent the twins and Snotlout home where they still looking queasy from the smoke, and finally managed to approach Anna and Elsa where they were still standing away from the huddle.

“Hey,” he said, softly, as he drew closer. Anna stood beside Elsa, rubbing her shoulder, but gave Hiccup a concerned glance as he approached. Elsa’s eyes were fixed on her hands, as she flexed and straightened her fingers and let her gauntlets slip in and out of being. Each one had a slightly different pattern of rings; four-in-one, six-in-one, six-in-two, moving between the patterns that he had taught her as if they were as easy as breathing. Any smith in the world would have been jealous. “Elsa? How are you doing?”

She did not reply, not at first. But her hands folded down, gauntlets fading away one more time, and then she wrapped her arms around her chest and tucked her hands beneath her armpits. “For a moment…” a muscle in her temple twitched. “Just _for a moment_ I thought…”

Over a year ago, he had asked about another person with magic, a woman who could blaze fire from her fingertips. Elsa had replied that she was dead, bluntly and without sentiment. But perhaps that had been the best thing to do before the strange boy asking her stranger questions.

Anna continued rubbing Elsa’s shoulder, expression conflicted and pained.

“If you guys want to head home,” Hiccup said, “the War Council won’t be meeting until sundown. Rest. Or…” he nodded to Elsa’s hands. “Practice, if that’s what you want.” Something was starting to flicker in his mind, though, and he flicked his thumbnail against the pad of his index finger. “I might need to come and get you later. I’ll see.”

“You are thinking of something,” said Elsa, finally looking up properly.

He could feel how thin his own smile was. “Trying to. I’m hoping Loki might grant me some inspiration for this one.”

Elsa smiled, at least, although Anna glanced away at the mention of the gods that had to be as strange to her as hers were to him. With a gentle touch of his hand to Elsa’s, he took his leave, checked that the barn was clear of smoke and collected, after some searching, four of the clay spheres with their broken stem-like projections. When he picked them up, bits of iron pyrite and flint fell from the stem, and they smelt sharp and unpleasant. He put them back into the otherwise empty satchel that they had abandoned in the barn, tipped away the half-bucket of water, and gathered everything else onto the tray to return it to the jail.

Heather was sitting at the back of her cell, blankets drawn around her again, while Astrid stood beside the wall and watched her intensely. Predator eyes, Hiccup had called them once. He put the tray aside, and glanced over the fire that was dying down again.

“I’ll take over from here,” he said, with a nod to Astrid. She frowned. “Until Fishlegs brings someone.” The line of blood on her cheek was smeared, but not quite brushed away, and Hiccup let his voice soften. “You should get that dressing checked.”

The frown held for a moment longer, then she nodded and went her way. Hiccup knelt to build up the fire again, letting the silence fill the room again.

It did not take long. “I’m sorry,” Heather said, quietly. “I just… I just thought that I could get my parents out. You can handle dragons. I saw you, with all those different species.”

Sitting back on his haunches, Hiccup examined his handiwork with the fire before looking round. “I just wish that you’d told us. We’re still going to do our best to get your parents out, but not knowing it put us all at risk. I don’t want to risk my friends _dying_ ,” it was the first time that had spoken the word, and it all but stung, “because of something I don’t know.”

“I swear, there’s nothing else.”

His level gaze probably said exactly how difficult that was to believe. Heather looked away, and tugged the blankets more closely around herself. Silence fell again, and Hiccup straightened up, ignoring the chair in favour of leaning on the edge of the table. There was something half-shaped in his mind; he needed something that might give them a chance against the Outcasts in their fortress-like stone tunnels. The dragons were amazing, but they only had limited shots, and it would only be possible to get a handful of fighters out there anyway. The odds of winning, or at least doing well enough to subdue the Outcasts, did not look good.

He saw Heather’s shift from the corner of his eye before she spoke. It looked as if she was sitting cross-legged, feet tucked up from the floor, and it made her seem younger somehow. Only their age, or perhaps less, since they had all been on Dragon Island and he could not picture her fighting in that way. It was strange to think that she was a year older than Anna.

“That… what Elsa did,” said Heather, speaking carefully. “That was real magic, wasn’t it? The sort we can’t explain, the sort,” she swallowed, “the sort that only the gods can grant.”

“It wasn’t a trick,” Hiccup replied. As for the gods, he could not say, but it seemed at least a more likely solution than deals with dark spirits. “She can do that and more.”

“I’ve only ever heard about magic like that.” She shook her head. “It feels like a blur already; I wish I’d been watching. The ice was beautiful.”

He had thought the same, any number of times, both before and after the catastrophic break in Elsa’s magic that had come that summer. Anna had always seemed to see the beauty in it, but he knew that Elsa was usually not as taken with its appearance. “Ice is,” he settled for.

But Heather shook her head, lips slightly pursed. “No. More than usual ice. Do – do _you_ know how she does it?” She cocked her head, and he saw the curious glint back in her eyes, the same one that had been there when she had been asking about the Skrill, or about the other dragons. Even if he suspected that it was real, it was enough of a warning.

“Elsa’s magic is hers to speak about,” he said. At least Heather averted her eyes at that. “Not mine. She’s not some sort of… _thing_ , to be mined for secrets.”

Heather might have gone to say something, but Hiccup looked away sharply, eyes focused on nothing, as chips of thoughts in his brain started to swirl together like a glass unshattering. Mines. The cold air that had whistled through the cells in Outcast Island. Thick, cloying smoke.

He needed a slate. His hands itched for chalk, and as he blinked and came back to the moment he realised that Heather was staring at him intently, a wariness that seemed one step from fear in her eyes.

“The smoke,” Hiccup said, firmly. “How did you make it?”

Though she hesitated for a moment, Heather did not try to evade him. “It’s bat guano and honey. You boil it up with water in a particular way, and it makes a paste. Light the paste, it burns and produces the smoke.”

So it had been that, and not the smell of cooking rockling, which had made her want to retreat outside. He had to admit to being grimly impressed with how well she had hidden that. “Is it toxic? To breathe in?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” said Heather.

“That’s not what I asked. If a room or a barn or something else gets flooded with it, what does it do to the people? Can it kill them, or will it just make them gag?”

“If you’re in the thickest parts, or in it too long, your eyes and throat will be irritated, but that’s all,” she said insistently. “It can make you cough, but it’s not toxic, not in its own right.”

“Good.” His nails pressed sharply into his palm as he clenched his fist. “Tomorrow, I’m probably going to have you making more of it. And these clay things,” he added, reaching into the satchel to pull one out. “Does it need to be in these, or could you just put, I don’t know, a bucket of the stuff out?”

“The ceramic stops it from being lit accidentally. It can get hot, it would probably set fire to the bucket as well.”

The wary look in Heather’s eyes had not gone away, but Hiccup was not sure that it should. He could feel a plan forming that perhaps even Loki would frown at, would consider cruel rather than cunning, but he could not bring himself to lead his friends into a fight without every possible advantage.

The door opened again, and Hoark entered, a large leather bag slung over his shoulder. He was using one crutch to get around these days, and it was known that Gothi doubted he would be able to walk without it again. But he had the leg, and his life, and Hiccup knew that he was grateful for them.

“Hoark, this is Heather,” said Hiccup. “Heather, Hoark. He should leave you in peace, to sleep.”

“Brought some work with me,” Hoark said, with a nod to his bag. His wood carving, only a small use of his time before his injury, had become his main way of trading. “Gobber asked for a new socket for that leg of yours, in fact.”

At any other time, it might have raised a smile, but Hiccup’s mind was already elsewhere. “Thanks,” he said, distantly. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Grab someone passing by if you need water or something.”

Before either of them could ask anything more of him, he hurried away. Toothless joined him as he made his way through the rain towards the light of the forge, where he knew that the largest slate in the village could be found, and where Gobber looked by now to be waiting.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time that sundown came, Gobber had helped Hiccup to move the slate to the floor of the Great Hall, and Hiccup had wiped away notes and jottings to replace them with a sketch of the inside of the Outcast halls. Some areas were only speculations, but some he knew better, and when he sat and thought he had been able to remember the way that the air had moved across his face. More clearly, he remembered the huge metal doors with their huge metal fittings, and the shape of the rocks directly above them.

If Vigdis Dreadsdottir looked confused at his request to come to the Great Hall, she had not shown it. She had only been settled on Berk some six years, but Hiccup remembered that even when she had first settled here, she had been surprised that Berk did not mine and had even offered to lead a new team out into the Wildlands in search of good iron ore. But for all her experience, Stoick had refused her, and the rocks of the Wildlands remained untouched. She sat talking quietly with Gobber, but whenever Hiccup had occasionally let the words drift to his attention they had not seemed particularly important.

He hoped that she remembered now what she had known then.

Stoick appeared first, Anna and Elsa with him, and looked shocked at the sight of the usual war council table pushed aside and replaced with three benches in a horseshoe around the slate on which Hiccup was finishing working.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, wishing that he could not hear the tiredness in his own voice. He sat back on his heel, keeping his weight to the right to avoid digging his prosthetic into his own rear. “This is…” he waved to his sketch. “What I remember of Outcast Island. Those parts are pretty certain, those parts are more guesses. If it’s going to be a handful of us taking on the Outcasts, I want more of a plan than flying in and shooting.”

“Really?” said Gobber. “And how many of your friends do you think will suggest shooting and flying in?”

“At least three of them,” replied Hiccup, without thinking. He rubbed chalk on his thighs, and looked over it one last time. “That should do. Any sign of the others?”

“Not yet,” said Stoick. “No table, then?”

“Couldn’t get the slate onto it. And I needed everyone to be able to see it.”

It was Snotlout who turned up first, wrapped up against the rain and grumbling to himself about nothing in particular but fallen quiet and grim-faced at the sight of the slate and the people already gathered around it. As he pulled the door closed, Hiccup caught sight of the last of the daylight thinned by clouds, and sure enough it was not long before Phlegma and Spitelout arrived. Fishlegs was not much later, followed by the twins, and just as Hiccup was getting more concerned Astrid finally appeared as well, braids redone and expression serious from the start.

As she took a seat, Stoick looked around, and Hiccup was struck by a fresh wave of sickness as he looked at how few of them there even were. Stoick did not bother standing up, but did straighten in his seat and clear his throat, and the others looked round to him.

“As you all know by now, the decision has been made by the whole of Berk that a strike on Outcast Island should be made without delay. Those of you who are here today who have dragons have been asked because you are able of reaching Outcast Island reliably and quickly, and will therefore be the ones attacking. Do you have any questions?”

“Uh,” Tuffnut raised his hand, “is Hiccup going to be leading this? Because his judgement has not been the best this moon.”

Although the cast of the light meant that he was quite literally in his father’s shadow, Hiccup had not been expecting to be talked about as if he were not even there. The words bought with them a strange mix of frustration and humiliation, and it did not entirely mitigate it to see the look of shock on Stoick’s face.

Hiccup stood up, into the firelight. “I’m quite aware of my own failings, Tuff,” he said. “Now more than ever. But yes, I am going to be there, and I’m going to lay out my plan now, in front of all of you. If you see any gaps in my judgement,” he picked his way around the edge of the slate, so as not to smudge it in passing. “You can tell me now.

“This is what I can piece together of the layout of Outcast Island,” he said. “The best we can estimate, there are a hundred to a hundred and twenty people. Almost all of them will be fighting-capable.” Saying the numbers aloud was worse. “We can’t face them head-on.”

“We have dragons,” said Snotlout, as if he were being a muttonhead.

“We still can’t face them head-on,” Hiccup replied. “Vigdis, I’m sorry that I’ve kept you waiting without explaining for so long. But your family mined, yes?” She nodded. “And that included using fires to drive air currents and make sure that fresh air got down into them?”

This time looking more surprised, Vigdis nodded again. He had remembered her speaking about it, years before, ensuring Stoick that it would be possible to keep people safe even beneath the ground.

“I want you to flip that around,” he said. “I have a way of producing smoke, not toxic but disorientating, and I want it spread throughout the halls. Can you tell me where it’s best to insert it, and which of the windows and points here,” he crouched down and pointed to several in turn, where he had seen them on the way in, “to block up?”

She pulled a face, but nodded. “I think so. I can’t guarantee it, but if you’re just trying to spread it as much as possible, I think so.”

“Good. We introduce smoke, and spread it through. Drive the Outcasts to the front gates, as much as we can.” He planted his fingertips by the appropriate part of the drawing. “And when they do, they will find it closed.”

“Pretty sure they know how to open their own door,” said Ruffnut.

“If they’re made of metal, we can weld them shut,” Astrid said. Her tone was level, and she looked at Hiccup without recrimination in her gaze, but he could not say that he liked seeing her, seeing any of them, so focused on fighting. “Right?”

“Exactly. Stormfly welds the door shut, we wait for the Outcasts to bunch up there but don’t give them time to come up with another plan,” he replaced his splayed fingers with a single jab, “and then Toothless blasts the doors open again.”

“You’re going–” Anna started, but Elsa squeezed her hand and she fell abruptly silent again.

He wondered whether it had been something about the fact that he was planning ways for them to kill.

After a moment, it became clear that she was not going to continue, and he took a deep breath. “I will draw you all a picture of Alvin, so you know what he looks like. I will also sketch and describe the two who seemed closest to him, a man named Savage and a woman named Clenchjaw. These are our priorities. Also,” he dug into a pouch at his belt, and pulled out the volitmaglaer, “there are these. If you see one, break it. Doesn’t matter what it takes.” It clattered, obsidian on slate, as he threw it down. “They block Elsa’s magic, and cause her pain. We have reason to believe Alvin learned about them from his mother.” He did not elaborate beyond that, and did not intend to.

“So we round them up and drive them out,” said Astrid. “What then?”

The weight of his own answer was enough to make him hesitate. “We pin them down,” he said. “And then we either kill them, or we take them captive.”

“A handful of you to keep a hundred Outcasts captive?” said Spitelout. Hiccup could not agree with the disbelief in his voice. “It’d take five times that, at least.”

“We have the dragons,” Hiccup said. He glanced at Elsa, almost asking for permission, and she nodded. “And we have Elsa’s magic. She can make walls that fire or steel can’t get through, a prison where we can hold them and give them orders to exit in smaller groups. It’ll take time, but we can do that. Remember, this isn’t a matter of attacking someone who has been declared nithingr and then found on Berk. This is their home island, and we are the attackers.”

He kept his gaze on Spitelout, but from the corner of his eyes Hiccup saw his father’s expression become softer, sadder. Spitelout still looked unconvinced, but he gave a curt nod, and for now Hiccup supposed that had to be enough. Stoick was not the only one whose child would be among them, although Snotlout was perhaps pointedly not sitting with his father.

“We can’t rely just on Elsa’s magic,” said Astrid. “You’ve said that they have those things,” she waved to the mirror; “they might have other tricks we don’t know about. We have to be able to fight with steel and fire.”

“I know. We have some of the steel nets left, from the netter traps; Gobber and I kept some of them back in case they would come in useful.” Their thoughts had not been that this was the form of use they might take, but he was grateful now for their foresight. “And before we hit the gate, I want a minimum of firepower used. Not just because of shot limits, but for visibility. The one exception,” he nodded to a fehu set off to the side of the main sketch. “I saw smoke and fire from this area, which I have reason to believe is their smithy. It will need to come down as we start the attack.”

“Sounds like Alvin made a mistake, taking you to the island,” said Phlegma. It was the first that she had spoken, and Hiccup was not sure how to feel about her words.

“Yeah,” he settled for. “I guess so.”

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, to his surprise, nobody argued against the bare bones of his plans. The discussion lasted well into the night as they refined it, established fallbacks and fallbacks of fallbacks, and it did not at all escape Hiccup’s notice that Astrid was the one most engaged in the conversation. Fishlegs looked pale in the darkness, the twins overwhelmed, and Snotlout only put in the occasional comment or question.

As for Elsa, she answered a few questions when they were directed to her, but asked only one. “When do we fly?”

“I believe we can be ready for the day after tomorrow,” Hiccup said. He waited for an objection, and was not sure whether he was disappointed when there was not one. “Which means that we have tomorrow to prepare. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, I need you to find caves with bats, and bring back two barrels of guano.” The twins grimaced, perhaps unimpressed with such a seemingly trivial request. “It’s _important_ , guys. It’s half of what we need to make more of the smoke that Heather used on us today – the smoke that we’re going to use to take down the Outcasts.

“Fishlegs, I need you to find out two things. How long Meatlug can hold molten rock in her stomach, and how quickly she can melt rock after ingesting it. Then, I need as much honey as you can get hold of.”

“Honey?” said Fishlegs.

“The other half of the smoke. We need as much is as in the village, and after that we’re probably going to need more as well – if Meatlug is immune to Speed Stingers, she’ll be immune to bees as well, right? Get her to bring the hives to you, if there are even that many hives this deep into autumn.

“Snotlout, I need those metal nets checked over, make sure that they’ll actually fan out when we drop them. Some of the weight-stones will probably need replacing. And there are some old netter sites which we didn’t check because we thought that Wildlings would have taken them apart by now, but they need double-checking. We need every net we can,” he added, lest Spitelout try to protest such a menial task.

Luckily, nothing was forthcoming. “Astrid, Anna, I’m putting you together because this is a big one. I need workable armour for all of us. Not just bracers and pauldrons. Gambesons or hardened leather at least, but chain for all of us, if we can. You may have to trade for it.” They could not call it borrowing, could not guarantee that they would be coming back, and from the grim look on Astrid’s face she at least understood it. “Make the trade with whatever you have to.”

“What gold Berk has is behind you,” Stoick said.

Anna cleared her throat pointedly. “And Arendelle,” she added.

There was a deep silence, broken only by the popping of the fire and Spitelout scratching his chin. Hiccup finally nodded. “Vigdis,” he said, turning to the woman still sitting and waiting on them, “that probably doesn’t make any sense to you. I’m sorry. Just… please don’t mention it elsewhere. Anna,” he looked back, “I’m glad of the offer, but remember, that offer doesn’t mean much to Berk. But if it allows us to… inflate the idea of Berk’s gold reserves a little…” Stoick was nodding along; “and you can be sure that it can be repaid when we get back to Arendelle come winter or spring, then do it. Most important will be dealing with crossbow bolts or arrows. Nothing will stand up to a ballista, and as far as possible I don’t want to get close enough for hand-to-hand combat.”

“What about me?” said Elsa quietly.

He swallowed. “I need you to come up to the academy with me tomorrow. I have… a lot to discuss with you there.”

Elsa simply nodded. “I will do what you need.”

As the fire burned down, they fell back to talking, but now Hiccup felt his own strength fading and was forced to take a seat once again. Somehow, there were still no objections, and as the night tarried on and they made their plans it almost started to feel as if they were not planning for death at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Elsa did not object to joining him in the academy the next morning, although he did notice that the hug she gave Anna before leaving went on for longer than usual. When they made it there, Hiccup reclaimed the bundle he had asked Toothless to carry up, and knelt beside it for a moment. A weight felt like it was settling between his shoulders. With the soft scuff of boots on packed earth, Elsa crouched down beside him and put one hand over his.

“Hiccup?”

“I came up here to… well, to ask three questions, I guess,” he said. He met her eyes; there were shadows beneath them, but he doubted he looked much better. At least he had managed to snatch some sleep overnight, even if it had not exactly felt restful.

She nodded. “Then ask.”

“All right.” He took a deep breath. “First, and I should have asked this earlier: are you coming with us to Outcast Island tomorrow?” Elsa looked at him incredulously. “Elsa… this isn’t your fight. Berk caused this, and we have to clear up the mess. And you have to know that,” the words caught in his throat for a moment, and his hand curled into a fist. “That I can’t promise we’ll all come back out.”

Her hand tightened on his. “I choose this fight, Hiccup. Of course I will come.”

“Thank you. Well, second question. Do you still mean that if I ask you to use your magic as a weapon?”

He saw the flicker of hesitation, the pain. He had faint memories of Dragon Island, and had to admit that they were all that he would ever have. But Elsa had confessed to him what she had done, and it had seemed like confession when she said it even though he had been nothing but awed at her description. But he knew that she struggled with the idea of her ice as a weapon, even a potential one, and had kept it as its own question for a reason.

Elsa’s thumb brushed his knuckles. “It is… a tool,” she said, finally. “And they will fear it, whether I use it or not. Yes, I will come, and I will use my ice.”

His eyes felt hot and dry, and his chest tightened as he forced himself to ask the last question. “All right. And thirdly, will you still mean that when I say that Anna will not be coming?”

Elsa drew back, her hand slipping on his. “What?”

“I can’t – I can’t risk it,” said Hiccup. “I can’t take the Queen of Arendelle to a fight that she might not come back from. Especially not this fight. She is the only one who might be able to take on the Silver Priests, and I _cannot_ take the risk of her being hurt.”

“You can’t make that choice for her.”

“There wouldn’t be a choice for her. As long as you’re going, she will want to go, even if it isn’t the best choice,” he said.

Elsa looked away, jaw tightening.

“I’m not blaming you,” Hiccup added quickly. “I just… I know you’re making the choice on what you want to do, and what you are capable of doing.” There was a lump in his throat that made it difficult to speak. “Anna will do what she thinks she _should_ do, even if that’s the dangerous choice.”

“Have you told her yet?”

He sighed. “No. And I think I will need help from my father to enforce it.” He thought of what Anna had told him, of all of her attempts to get into Elsa’s room even when she had been banned from it. “Although I’m not yet sure that my father has realised that I don’t intend for him and Thornado to come, either. Well, him at least.” He had to admit, a Thunderdrum would be of considerable use, if it could be persuaded to act with the rest of them. His voice softened. “I can’t risk him, either.”

“Do you really think that he wants to risk you?”

He shivered, even though it was no colder than it had been on any other day of that moon. “He’s Stoick the Vast. Berk needs him. But this attack needs Toothless, so it needs me.” Even now, he knew, he was struggling with the enormity of the words, what he was saying and what he was doing, but he had no choice now. They had all made their choices, and had to follow through on them. “Anna knows how to defend herself, but she hasn’t been trained to fight like we had. She sparred with the guards when she got bored, Elsa,” he said, with a sigh. “That’s not going to be enough.”

Elsa squeezed her eyes closed for a few heartbeats, then nodded. “I know,” she said, and finally met his gaze again. “And I understand. It is just… hard to hear. But yes, I will come with you, and use my ice, even if she is not coming.”

Impulsively, he dropped to his knee and reached across to hug her, throwing his arms around her shoulders. Her arms wound around him in turn, fingers digging in cold and tight, and he felt her fast, unsteady breathing for the passing seconds that it took him to get his own breath under control and blink away the worst of the dampness in his eyes. He was not sure whether Elsa knew just how important she was, both to him and to the fight they faced, but he had his suspicions that she might just know better than he did.

“All right,” he said, finally. “All right.” He let go again, and sat back. Sighed. “Then the main reason that I bought you up here, I guess, is to push what you can do with your magic. I don’t view it like that,” he added quickly, “like a weapon. I just… it’s like being a blacksmith, I guess. When you look at metal, you can see a plough and a sword at the same time.”

She smiled, thin though it was. “I have seen how your mind works.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a warning.” He pushed back up to a crouch, brushed off his knees, and undid the knot holding closed the huge waterproof sheet he had needed to borrow. As he pulled it open to reveal the assorted contents, Elsa raised her eyebrows but did not comment. “All right.”

He grabbed the first item and straightened up, Elsa following him gracefully. Mercifully she had braided her hair right back, with nothing that might trap, as he helped to arrange the chainmail tunic to make it as easy as possible for her to slip it on.

“This is going to be far too big,” he admitted, even as the weight came to settle on her shoulders. Arms that should have been elbow-length were halfway to her wrists, and a hem that should have reached her hip was partway down her thigh. The belt helped, though, even if he had to tighten it further than it had probably ever been tightened before in order to spread the weight between her shoulders and hips. “All right. There we go.”

Elsa raised her left arm, testing. “It is not as heavy as I thought,” she said.

“I just wanted you to get a feel for it,” said Hiccup. “You make those gauntlets faster than I can make a nail. Do you think you could recreate this in ice?”

For a moment, she looked at him in surprise again, but sure enough turned back to the mail with clear consideration in her eyes. She looked at how the arm met the shoulder, running her fingers over the join, then peered at the neck. Hiccup waited, allowing her to look it over, until she nodded and started to undo the belt again.

“You all right?”

“I will need to try,” Elsa said. She started working her way out of the tunic, and he reached in to help. “And I know that my ice destroys fabric. I do not know what it does to metal.”

And he had to admit, a full mail tunic was both a lot rarer and a lot more expensive than a dress or shirt. What he was not expecting, though, was for Elsa to follow up the mail with her own green tunic, and reach for the undershirt beneath.

Hiccup spluttered something, averting his eyes, until he realised that Elsa had stilled and was looking at him with faint amusement. “What?”

“I am wearing a bind beneath,” she said. He felt his cheeks grow hot, and didn’t manage anything approaching words. “Besides,” Elsa added, more wryly, “you were about the only one on Dragon Island who did not see me naked.”

“Anna will kill me,” he blurted.

“No, she won’t,” said Elsa calmly. “Besides, this cannot be worse than straddling you in your bed.”

Hiccup rubbed his eyes, and resolutely did not wonder where she had learnt the word straddle. “Yeah, all right. That was definitely worse.”

He still kept his eyes turned away as Elsa pulled off her undershirt, drape it over her arm with her tunic, and cross to a table at the side of the academy. She put them down, glanced up to the sky, then pressed her hand to the wall and let ice crawl up from her touch and spread out from bar to bar above them. It filled the academy with a blue glow, leaving the air cooler and more still and blocking out the gusting sounds above.

“It looked like rain,” she said, for explanation, as she stood back in front of Hiccup again. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

Light flowed out over her shoulders, so bright that it made Hiccup squint, then rolled down her arms and body in a slow, steady wave. When the light faded, there was indeed a mail tunic left on her, and for a moment all that Hiccup could do was gesture at it, utterly speechless. Elsa opened one eye first, looking down, then a relieved smile found her face as she looked down at the result. The hole around her neck was smaller than it would be on a real mail tunic, tighter-fitting to her neck, but the arms finished neatly above her elbows and the hem sat perfectly on her upper thigh without impeding her movement.

Her smile faded as she picked at the rings of the sleeve. “The rings are quite large,” she said, putting her fingertip through one of them. “I know that is not very good.”

Hiccup was not sure whether to laugh, or to put his head in his hands. A full mail tunic would take three moons to make even if there were no more work that needed doing in-between. In practice, it would probably be double that at least. For the moment, he settled for taking the leather belt from the steel mail and slipping it around Elsa’s waist, cinching it appropriately tight. Closer, he could see that the mail was more fitted than a real one would be, too narrow at the waist to go over her shoulders, but it was still loose enough for her to move in so that was almost certainly to her advantage. The rings lay perfectly flat over her shoulders, and when he put his hands beneath her upper arms to guide her arms upwards the mail did not pull or restrict her movement.

“Well,” he had to conclude, “that’s probably better than I could do given fabric and half a moon.”

The rings were large, he supposed. But they were at least the six-in-one that she seemed to prefer for gauntlets as well. He could see the fabric of her bind and the bare skin of her arms through them.

“Yeah, they could do with being smaller. This will stop a sword or an axe from cutting;” he mimed slashing across her upper arm; “but it won’t stop arrows if they’ve got small heads. Not now, though,” he added quickly, as Elsa withdrew her arms from his. She looked surprised. “Later today. I’ve got other things I want to try, and if you keep it on then you can get a feel for it. All right?”

“Very well,” Elsa said. She let Hiccup step back away from her, to a clear area of ground. “What next?”

“A staff?”

She held up her left hand, palm upwards, and light sparked above her palm. It spread out both ways until she held a staff some six feet long, perfectly balanced in her hand.

“All right,” said Hiccup. He scuffed a cross onto the floor using his left foot. “How about putting one here? Like you were making it for me?”

Elsa paused, pursing her lips. The staff in her hand shimmered away, sloughing into specks of light that flickered out like embers, as she fixed her eyes on the spot that Hiccup had marked. He waited for her to turn it over in her own mind, and decide on her own strategy. She would know her own magic better than he did. Finally, just as specks of rain started to tap against the icy roof above them, she flicked her hand as if she were throwing something to the floor. A strip of spines flicked up from the floor, passing only two feet from where Hiccup stood, but the spines were more cylindrical than usual and their ends blunter.

“No,” Elsa said. A flourish of her hand, and the spines fell away again. She repeated the gesture, and this time the spines were closer together, lower and finer, apart from one that jabbed upwards like a spear and was the perfect size for Hiccup to wrap his hand around.

He grabbed it before Elsa could change her mind again; it snapped away cleanly in his hand, cold and dry and not sticking to his palms as he spun it just once and held it in both hands. Elsa looked at him, visibly nervous.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

“And a way of rearming people if they lose their weapon, yes?”

“You really do know how my mind works. Yeah. If one of us ends up without a weapon, and you have the opportunity… I’d appreciate it. Especially since if one of the Outcasts gets hold of it…”

Elsa’s fingers twitched, and the staff and spines both withered away.

“Exactly.” The thought of weapons that could belong only to one side was a strange one, but in the circumstances he could not really process the idea of being excited about it. Perhaps one day he would be able to consider it completely. “All right, next up,” he returned to the items that he had bought, “shields. I’m not going to give you Gobber’s full speech about how essential they are.”

“What other things are there?” said Elsa, with a nod to the various items. “After this?”

Hiccup sighed. “Greatshields, a sword, an axe, some other pieces of armour I could scrounge up… generally, it’s going to be seeing what you can copy.”

“And if they have the volitmaglaer?”

“We’ll break them,” said Hiccup flatly. “And you’re as capable a fighter as the rest of us with a staff or shield, if it comes to it. How do you feel about shortbows?”

“I do not think I could make one of them from ice.”

Not yet, at least. Hiccup still suspected that even Elsa did not know all of what her powers could do. “I mean to use while we’re still on dragonback. It’ll be hard to get the draw for longbows, though I’m sure Astrid will figure out a way, but we’ll be firing down instead of up so we’ll have some advantage.”

Elsa shrugged. “I have not fired a bow in some moons. But I think I could.”

“All right, then. You ready to make some weapons and armour?”

He left unspoken what else her magic could do. They both knew what it was capable of, that it could rip up from the ground like a hedgehog’s spines. If they could tear apart a Red Death, they would handle a human with no problems. But that was the side of her magic that Elsa struggled with; she would not use it unless she had to, but if she needed it then she would be quite capable of calling upon it.

Although her shoulders were tense, Elsa nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise to whatever government agent may have been monitoring my internet searches while I was trying to figure out how to make smoke bombs with Viking-era technology. Nowadays, they'd be made using potassium nitrate and sugar, but the best available equivalent would be bat guano (for the potassium nitrate) and honey. Rather than matches and a fuse, iron pyrite and flint will create a spark that ignites it. There's a small amount of handwaving as to how reliable these would be, but I felt that was fairly in-keeping with HTTYD's usual approach to technology!


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of the Betrayal Arc.

Elsa worked with her magic, reproducing weapon after weapon, armour after armour, and Hiccup felt a knot of guilt in his stomach with each one that she made. Her expression was calm, controlled, but occasionally he would see the twitch of her jaw, or would carefully draw back for a moment or two when he saw her fingers tremble or her eyes focus on a point on the floor. But she could create them all, the effort far more mental than physical, and the ceiling above them never wavered.

As the sky began to darken outside, though, Hiccup knew that there were other things that needed his attention, things which he could not ignore. His shoulders sagged, and Elsa stopped in her work on recreating a greatshield to look round, concern in her eyes.

“Hiccup?”

“I have to go. Sorry...” he shook his head. “The smoke. We need Heather to show us how to make it, and I think I’m going to need to be there to oversee that.”

Elsa nodded. She glanced at her latest attempt, and it shimmered away again. “Go. I will keep practising.”

“Are you sure?” Her first few attempts had been too thin, and when Hiccup had stabbed them with the Gronckle iron knife the metal had sheared straight through. The one that followed had been several inches thick and much harder, allowing the Gronckle iron to do no more than chip at it, but had blurred and distorted the view beyond. It had been Elsa’s comment that it would be better if it were clear, and they could see through.

“Yes.”

Hiccup paused for a moment, in case further explanation might be forthcoming, but Elsa pressed her lips tightly together and did not continue. With an answering nod, he stepped back in and gave her one last hug, over the chill of her icy armour. Her returned embrace was brief but tight, and then he hurried to wake Toothless from his snoring in the warmth of one of the pens. No fewer than three of the Nightmare hatchlings had curled up beside him, although to judge by Toothless’s surprised look they had probably curled close while he was still asleep.

The twins had left the two barrels of bat guano just outside the jail, with oilskins hastily thrown over the top doing nothing to disguise the smears along the sides or the distinctive scent. The barrel of honey beside them also had some telltale drips, but Hiccup had to check inside the crate before realising that there were three complete hives, still with a few dead bees clinging to them, stacked inside.

He was not sure whether Fishlegs had taken him at his word, or simply become too annoyed to even try breaking down the hives into honey, but did not blame him either way. Before Toothless could stick his nose into the crate, Hiccup steered him away, wiped the honey off his fingers on the longest grass within reach, then straightened up and let himself back into the jail.

Heather was sitting in the back corner, blankets pulled around her; the rain had put a chill in the air that even the fire seemed unable to dissipate. He was surprised to see Sanguina taking a turn at watch, with a small book in her hands in which she was making tiny, careful notes. Then again, he supposed that she was only about Heather’s age, and that Phlegma had a strong interest in keeping track of everything.

“How are you doing?” said Hiccup, looking to Sanguina first.

She looked up from her work, shrugged, and half-smiled. “Better in here than in the rain. Still trying to work out how to get this many crates of dried fish into three warehouses, though,” she added, tapping the end of her pen against the book. She was working in charcoal, and there were smudges of old drafts on the page. “My mother says if I can get sixty Vikings in a snekke, I should be able to get this much food in a warehouse. Unfortunately, the food can’t offer suggestions itself.”

“Well, at least it won’t complain if someone stands on its foot,” said Hiccup. Sanguina snorted, and he looked round to Heather. “All quiet?”

“I did apologise for my singing,” Heather said.

“Trust me, I’ve heard a lot worse,” said Sanguina. She flicked back a page, frowned, and shook her head. Apparently the crates were not playing along. Letting the book sag in her hands, she turned to Heather as well, voice becoming more serious. “You’ve a good voice. And there’s prisoners who do worse things with themselves than go through songs and poems.”

Heather smiled wanly. “The best way to remember them, I find. Practice.”

There was a wooden cup in the cell beside her, and a bucket just outside, and plates sitting neatly piled on the table behind the door. She had more colour in her cheeks than before, although there were still bags beneath her eyes.

“Well, I’m afraid to say that I need you practicing something else,” said Hiccup. “That smoke. I need you to show me how to make it.”

“How much?”

“However much we can make from what I’ve had the other riders gather. You’ll need a fire, right? And clay?” He waited for her nod. “Cinder will have some, I’m sure. I can fetch it while we’re getting the bonfire lit.”

“We?” Heather looked at him, eyes piercing.

“My friends are playing their parts in preparing. I’ll be doing this with you. Toothless will be there to keep watch,” he added, with a nod towards the door, “and Sanguina, if she’s willing.”

Sanguina flipped closed the small book. “Sounds more interesting than trying to work this out. Where are you planning to set the fires?”

“Wind’s westerly. We’ll need to be on the east side of the village.”

“Sounds fair,” she said. “Come on, let’s get going.” She grabbed the key from the wall, then held it in her teeth as she unbuckled her cloak, juggling them so that she held out the cloak to Heather when the door was unlocked. “Here. We’ll be going past my house, I’ll grab a spare.”

Heather pushed the blankets onto the narrow bench, but hesitated at the doorway. “I appreciate it, but the smoke smells pretty bad. I’ll just stay close to the fire.”

“Just until you get the fire going, then,” said Sanguina. “I’ll not have anyone be catching a chill on my watch.”

With an uncertain, grateful look, Heather accepted the cloak, and wrapped it around herself. Hiccup was mostly grateful that his current boot was staying waterproof. “All right,” he said. “The guano and honey is outside. We’ll get Toothless to help us moving it over there. Come on, then. Let’s get moving, don’t want the weather turning on us.”

 

 

 

 

 

Heather did not talk much, other than to explain how to make the concoction that would produce the smoke. It was smelly, dirty work, even when it did not directly involve the bat guano, and Hiccup had to admit that he was impressed that Heather had both been willing to do this and been able to keep it from them. The tension in her was different when she was focused on her work; her shoulders were set rather than hunched, and the frown on her lips had a different feel to it. Hiccup hoped that meant that it was easier; he could feel that it was, at least a little bit, for him.

The sky continued to darken, and through the rain held off for a while it began again in the darkness, sharp spitting drops that felt almost like sleet on his exposed face and hands. At least, those parts of his hands not dripping with honey, clay, or other things he would rather not think about. Sitting closer to the fire meant being closer to the smell, but at least it helped to keep away the sting of the sleet. Sanguina wisely stayed upwind of the fire, making the clay spheres and flash-heating them as Heather described. It made them brittle, but that was only an advantage here.

After a while, it settled to little more than a sting in his nose and an ache in his shoulders. Making sure that it was the right consistency was enough to keep his mind occupied, to mostly keep at bay the thoughts of what they were on the verge of doing.

They made a couple of dozen of the spheres, while Hiccup got the hang of the mix itself, then as the first barrel of guano emptied he indicated to Heather that they should start just filling that instead. She hesitated, looking at him warily.

“You know that’s going to make a _lot_ of smoke, right? That could cover half of Berk.”

“That’s pretty much the idea,” he replied.

She swallowed, and the shift in her stance might have been as she realised roughly what he had planned, but then she looked once more at the barrel and nodded. “All right. Just make sure you only light it when you want it lit.”

Hiccup nodded, and did not even joke about leaving it with the twins or Snotlout. Truth be told, Hookfang might be more of a problem than Snotlout anyway. But he _needed_ this, they all needed it, and he could not bring himself to even joke about the idea of losing it.

They worked on, as the night grew colder around them, until Hiccup could see his breath if he moved too far away from the fire. After working with Elsa for much of the day, he was surprised by the tiredness that seemed to seep into his bones as well as his mind.

The honey and the guano ran out at much the same time, and Heather sat back on her heels as the last of the mixture cooked down over the fire. She pushed back her hair with the back of her hand and sighed.

“Thank you,” said Hiccup. “For all of this.”

“I just…” Heather shook her head, eyes staying on the fire. “I want to be able to do something. This is better than sitting in a jail cell while my parents are captive there, but…”

“We’ll get them back.”

Her lips trembled, movements almost too small to see, and her eyes tightened just slightly. “If they’re still alive.” Her voice grew dark. “You said yourself that Alvin is smart. Why would he bother keeping them alive?”

“They’re still leverage over you.” It was perhaps not the best thing that she could have heard, but at least it answered the worst of her fears. “Perhaps Alvin thinks you’ll still be spying for him, even now.”

Heather fell grimly silent, and he suspected that he knew the rough shape of her thoughts. Deciding whether she would trade the lives and safety of her parents for that of strangers to whom she owed nothing, who made themselves alien by riding dragons, and who now had held her captive in turn. He didn’t know what side of the decision she was coming down on.

“Did you tell Alvin about this?” said Hiccup, gesturing to the material they had made. “The smoke?”

She shook her head. “I hadn’t made any in… over a year. I didn’t have any with us.”

“Where did you learn them?”

“Some island or other. I don’t remember.” There was a bite of frustration behind the words, although whether it was with herself or him, Hiccup could not say. “They called them _bomfuvos_ , I think it was. They can be used in tricks, as well… it doesn’t have to be like this.”

“I can imagine.” _Bomfuvos_. The word had a strange, southern shape to it, more so than Arendellen. He could guess that _fuvos_ > would be smoke, or something similar; it had the sort of shape that the Arendellen word did, and at least a little similarity. _Bom_ he had no idea, but he would make do. Smoke bomb, perhaps. That would be easier to say. Part of him was still wondering, though, what other tricks and scraps of knowledge Heather might have picked up in her travelling, what else she might be able to do. After the past days, it was an uncomfortable thought. “But in this case, it’s what we need.”

“When are you going?” she added abruptly, finally looking up. Her eyes seemed to bore into him.

It was on the tip of the tongue to reply before he caught himself. “Soon,” he admitted, and nodded to the smoke bombs. “That’s why we need this.”

They had decided on sunset. The great gates to the Outcasts’ halls faced east, and would be in deep shadow by that time. More than that, from what Hiccup had felt while in the cells the wind outside would be at its strongest at around that time; Vigdis had said that a strong wind would move the smoke more quickly through the halls.

It also gave everyone a little more time to say their goodbyes.

Heather nodded, curling back in on herself but carefully keeping her hands away from her clothes or face. It was not as if she had a lot of clothes to choose from, and Hiccup did not blame her for trying to keep the ones that she had clean. “I just… I hope this helps.”

“I’m sure it will,” he replied, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

 

 

 

 

 

Heather seemed resigned, and not angry, when he escorted her back to the jail. She assured him that food had been coming with the changing of the watches, and that she was quite warm enough. The grating boredom she did not touch on, but he could imagine that more than well enough. More than enough evenings during wildling or dragon attacks he had looked at the wrong side of a locked door.

By the time that he returned home, it was almost snowing, and so dark he had to be careful where he stepped. Only Gobber and Anna were in the front room as he entered, picking over the armour laid out on the table. Hiccup held open the door for Toothless to follow with a huff.

“Hey,” said Anna. “You’re back. Elsa said that you had to go and talk to Heather about something, but we didn’t think it would be so long.”

Hiccup held up his hands, scrubbed clean with a bucket of water from the well but still sore and protruding from damp sleeves. “Not talking to her. We made that stuff that burns to produce smoke. And some more of those… smoke bomb things, the pottery ones.”

“Smoke bomb?” said Gobber.

“ _Bomfuvos_ , apparently, but fuvos I’m pretty sure means smoke, like _suuvo_ ,” he nodded to Anna, “so… smoke bombs. I figured it would be easier to say, as well.”

Gobber shrugged. “Sounds fair to me. Any luck with them?”

“We’ve got a dozen.” He hung up his cloak, and eased his way out of his vest on his way to the corner of the table closest to the fire. “And enough smoke sludge or whatever it is to do what we need.”

“Good,” said Anna. She held herself straight, chin raised. “Because I’ve got armour for us.”

His throat tightened. He knew that he would face anger when he finally told Anna that she was not going, but had already decided that it would at least wait overnight. It was not worth even taking the risk that some of her anger might spill over to Elsa as well.

“Where is Elsa?” he said, looking at the items spread out on the table but not really seeing them.

Anna tugged on the end of one of her braids, and glanced towards the small bedroom. “Asleep,” she said, which at least explained the lack of any raised voices. “She came back not that long ago… she seemed tired.”

Personally, Hiccup had his doubts as to how well Elsa could be sleeping, but he nodded. “Well, I’ll keep the noise down, then.”

It was not quite enough to get a proper smile from Anna, but her lips twitched, and she flicked her braid back properly over her shoulder to point towards what they had. “We took the other armour round,” she said, “but, well, obviously we kept this so… yeah. That one’s yours.”

She indicated the pile closest to him, and he blinked and looked down at it properly. There was a leather lamellar shirt, which split to tassets over the thighs. It would not stand up to swords or axes, but would almost certainly turn away or slow down an arrow. Beside it were sturdy leather pauldrons and bracers that had been extended to cover the wrist and back of the hand, and his mother’s helmet. The helmet made the breath catch in Hiccup’s throat, and he put his hands flat on the table to keep them from shaking. Only when Gobber’s hook came to rest beside the helmet did he manage to tear his eyes away.

“I put in a strap,” said Gobber, voice unusually gentle. Hiccup looked at him blankly, and he tapped the underside of his chin with his hook. “So it doesn’t go falling off when you start doing those stunts of yours.”

“Thank you.” It came out barely audible, and Hiccup could feel the tears in his eyes.

Even Gobber did not seem to be able to summon up his usual cheery smile, although he did not look as scared as Hiccup felt. He cleared his throat, and nodded to the centre pile. “Did the same for Elsa, as well, with whatever she’s got planned.”

“We’ll see.” Most likely, Elsa would want to ride with him, with all of the acrobatic flying that might mean. But it was possible that she would fly with one of the others, maybe even Fishlegs; Meatlug would be a slower and more stable place from which to use her magic. “And thank you, Anna,” Hiccup added, pulling himself together. “For all of this.”

“Well, Astrid did most of it,” said Anna, wrinkling her nose. “Not sure I’m that good at the Berk style of negotiation. But these two,” she gestured between the second and third piles, “I’ve made sure they’re more different, so Elsa can wear what armour she wants and I’ll wear the other ones. There’s a mail hauberk, which, some of the rings had broken, but Gobber’s fixed it as best he can with wire. Or there’s leather plate,” she patted it with her left hand; it had a few battle-scars, but looked serviceable. “There’s a spare helmet, though it doesn’t have horns, and two pairs of heavy bracers. We only managed to get two sets of knee cops between the three of us, though,” she finished with a wince. “So I guess whoever is sitting on the front of the dragon can wear those, and whoever is behind can go without.”

“What about the others?”

“We’re not exactly going to have matching suits of armour,” said Anna, “but it’ll do. I think.”

The _’I hope’_ was unsaid, and every moment longer that Hiccup left it felt guiltier as he let Anna believe that she was coming with them. He wasn’t even sure whether it was selfish fear of telling her, or whether it was wanting her to have one last night sleeping next to Elsa rather than spending it arguing and fighting.

“Thank you,” he said, again. Even he could hear how tired it was this time. Hiccup rubbed his forehead, hands still chilly to the touch. “I’m sorry, I think I should head straight to sleep. It’s… been a long day.”

“Aye,” said Gobber, and it was the almost-real cheeriness in his voice which made Hiccup sure that he understood exactly what Hiccup meant. “Go on, then, lad. Anna, you’d best hit the hay as well, make sure that you’re well-rested. I’ll make sure to go over this one more time and see that it’s all in good order.”

Hiccup smiled weakly. “You’re the best, Gobber.”

“Pfft. Nowhere close,” said Gobber, “I just have a decent bash at it. Now go on, off with you. I’ll make sure there’s food to hand in case you wake up hungry during the night. Go on.”

At least it did not leave any room for arguing. Hiccup gave Anna a ‘what can I do’ shrug, backed away before it could look as if he was waiting for a hug he felt too guilty to receive, and made his way upstairs. It took a few strikes of the firesteel with uncooperative hands to get the candle at his bedside lit, and he sank down onto the bed as if it were the one patch of soft grass amid a hundred anthills.

Toothless padded over and rested his head on Hiccup’s knee, green eyes huge and searching. Looking into them made Hiccup feel calmer, his breath slow, and he stroked Toothless’s head and flaps until Toothless’s eyes were lulling slightly and a low rumbling chuff rolled through him.

The weight of a dragon’s head was enough to make his leg feel as if it were going to sleep, though, and it wasn’t as if he had any spare legs left. With some regret, he coaxed Toothless off again, and was just starting to take off his boot and foot when his stomach clenched, and he realised that he had not eaten since breakfast. Somehow it did not surprise him that Gobber had already known that.

He changed into his nightclothes, pulled a blanket around his shoulders, and was vaguely aware that it was no longer cold even if he couldn’t feel the warmth. The very idea of sleep was absurd, and he supposed that he should move to Toothless’s slate and its reassurance but his body felt too leaden to do so.

Fear was tightening on his chest, choking in his throat. He knew what he was leading the others into, and knew what it might mean. It would be easier if it were just _him_ , somehow; putting his life on the line was one thing, but thinking that he might be responsible for the lives of others was chilling. A shiver ran through him, unrelated to the actual temperature of the air.

His mind tumbled over on itself. Images of the others, dead or wounded; images of the dragons bleeding or chained. Elsa, in whose eyes he had seen terror before. Hiccup tugged the blanket around himself without really feeling it, until it was tight around his shoulders, staring at but not really seeing a knothole in the wood of the floor. Toothless huffed and nudged against his left knee, but he couldn’t respond to it. His fingers clenched so hard that they ached.

The creak on the stairs was _there_ , but he did not look round at the sound of it. Only as Gobber reached the top of the stairs, looking at him with calm sadness in the flickering candlelight, did Hiccup look up and realise that his eyes were wet. Not quite tears, but close, the weight of them in the back of his throat.

“All right, lad,” said Gobber. He carefully stepped over Toothless and sat down beside Hiccup on the bed with another creak. His right hand came to rest on Hiccup’s shoulder, a dull warmth through the layers. “I noticed that your light hadn’t gone out.”

“I didn’t want this,” said Hiccup. He was surprised at how rough his own voice sounded. “I don’t want to take them into war.”

Gobber did not say anything, just squeezed his shoulder gently.

“It’s seven of us fighting a whole _island_ ,” Hiccup said. He kept his voice low, not sure how long it had been but not hearing snoring from downstairs. There was a pretty good chance that some or all of the others were still awake. “Twelve, if you count the dragons.” Another hitch of the blanket; it felt almost comforting when it was tight around his shoulders. “We must be mad,” he murmured, and there was no humour about it, as there usually was.

“Your father knows that he can’t come,” said Gobber, and Hiccup’s stomach lurched but he felt a wash of relief at the same time. “He can fly with Thornado, aye, but he’s no knowledge of how to fight with him.”

“I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t want to have to tell him.”

“He knows.”

It was easier and worse altogether, a knife in the gut but at least it was only _his_ gut. Only it wasn’t, because Hiccup had seen the look in his father’s eyes when Hiccup had been injured or lost before, and he knew it would be a thousand times worse if Hiccup did not come home.

And he could not promise to come home.

“How did he do this?” Hiccup said, thinking of Stoick’s terse goodbyes whenever he and his men went searching for Dragon Island. Thinking as well of the worried, tight faces that had remained behind on the shore, the fear lingering no matter how many times the boats left. “How did he take scores of them away and know that everyone was fearing that he might get their people killed?”

“He knows that each of them made their choice,” Gobber replied. “And he makes sure that they’re each as prepared as they can be. Which is why you’re saying seven, isn’t it?”

Hiccup nodded.

“Aye, I thought as much.”

“Anna can’t go. What’s happening with the Outcasts is… it’s just another extension of Viking battles. It’s nothing new. But someone needs to face what the Silver Priests are doing, and only Anna has the position to do that.”

“Those decisions aren’t easy either,” said Gobber. “But for what it’s worth, I agree with you on this one.”

“So did Elsa.” That, above all else, had been what had convinced him that he was doing the right thing. Elsa knew Anna better, but would want as well to bend to Anna’s wishes more than Hiccup did. If she agreed, then Hiccup could be certain. He wormed a hand out to rub at his cheek, and forced out his words. “Gobber, whatever happens, I need you to ensure the academy continues to teach people about dragons.”

“Hiccup–” there was a pain in Gobber’s voice that he had rarely heard.

“The kids from this year, they know the lessons. Speedifist made notes on a lot of them. And you know dragons. Between you, you can teach people, even if,” his chest felt like it was aching, “even if none of us are around to run it. All right?”

He squeezed his eyes closed. Gobber brushed his shoulder, then reached up to run a hand over his hair, and Hiccup clenched every muscle in his gut to keep from shaking. “Aye, lad,” said Gobber, finally. “I promise.”

Alvin could not be allowed to undo everything that they had managed in the past year. But whatever happened, there would still be those who could ride, only a handful of them but that was all that they had started with anyway. There would be Fishlegs’s notes, and Hiccup’s. And the dragons had a better chance of coming back than their riders; the dragons could fly alone. All save Toothless. His life was in Hiccup’s hands, and Hiccup’s alone.

Gobber’s hand brushed over his hair again, then Gobber wrapped his arm right around Hiccup’s shoulders and pulled him close. Keeping his eyes closed, Hiccup leant in, and let himself feel less like the leader just for one more night.

 

 

 

 

 

Anna punched him in the face.

Luckily it was more on the cheekbone than in the nose, because at least that meant he was not bleeding everywhere, but it was still sudden and fast enough for Hiccup to be knocked into the wall by the force of it.

“How dare you!” she shouted, and looked to be winding up for another punch when Elsa grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back again. Anna seemed to melt back into herself when she realised it was Elsa, and turned with huge, frightened eyes instead. “He can’t say that! I’m coming with you. I…”

Elsa stroked Anna’s cheek, eyes sad and distant, and did not say anything. Peeling himself up from the wall again, and gingerly touching his left cheek to be sure nothing was broken, Hiccup watched as Anna’s expression moved from shock, to disbelief, to anger, and she pulled back out of Elsa’s hold again.

“You _knew_.”

“Only since yesterday,” said Hiccup quickly, “and I told her not to tell you. You want to blame anyone, blame me.”

“Oh, I am blaming you,” Anna assured him. She was halfway into the leather plate, nothing laced up and everything clattering and flapping about her as she pointed at him. “Of course I’m blaming you. You can’t just decide this for me! If Elsa’s going, then I’m going!”

“That’s exactly why you’re not going,” said Hiccup flatly. “You aren’t making a choice, you’re just following Elsa. If you go, you’ll be obsessed with protecting her, she’ll be obsessed with protecting you, and that could easily get one or both of you killed. Is that what you want?”

It was a low blow. He hoped he never had to say anything like it again, never had to twist the knife to force someone to act.

“You _bastard_.”

He refused to waver even as Anna snarled her words at him, and pulled his hand away from the hot ache in his cheekbone. Painful seconds passed, then she all but ripped off the leather armour, threw it back on to the table, and looked at Elsa with betrayal in her eyes. She went for the door, but was still reaching to open it when Gobber entered, firewood bundled under one arm. He took them all in at a glance, then caught Hiccup’s eye and nodded.

“Come on, lass,” said Gobber. He dropped the wood in a messy heap beside the door, and put a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a talk, hmm?”

Perhaps Anna responded to the promise of a parental figure as well. Either that or she was overwhelmed; she allowed Gobber to scoop her out of the door and away, and Hiccup slumped back against the wall with shame washing over him.

“I’m sorry,” Elsa said quietly.

The absurd urge to laugh rose in him. “Elsa, no part of this is your fault.”

“But you needed to hear someone say it.”

He half-recognised the words, and looked up as Elsa was straightening out the leather armour beside the chainmail. Her hands were shaking. “I guess, yeah. Thank you.”

For a split second, she managed a smile, then her expression fell serious again as she looked at the two armours. Once they could be sure that the volitmaglaer were broken, he knew that she would be the hardest to touch, but until then she would be in at least as much danger as the rest of them.

“Go with the leather,” Hiccup advised her. “It’s lighter-weight, doesn’t wear on your shoulders so quickly. And you can just put your ice over the top of it, if you need to.”

“Then you should wear the mail?” she cocked her head as she looked at him. “Over the leather?”

Hiccup had woken early, and put on the leather armour first thing to let it grow warm and softer around him. He had to admit that it fitted well, just enough room underneath for a couple of thick wool layers to give him some protection and warmth at the same time. “I think I’ll stick with this. Toothless and I work best when we’re light, after all. I might offer it to the others, though.”

With a nod, Elsa picked up the leather plate and pulled it on over her head, settling the chestplate level before nudging the shoulders into place on top. Her hair was braided neatly back, and Hiccup stepped round to help her do up the lacing beneath the left arm. Even armour was made for right-handed people.

“Gobber’s good at mediating,” he said, as he carefully tied the knot in such a way that it could be pulled undone even with just the right hand, but would not be tugged open by the movement of the armour. “He got enough practice with me and my father over the years.”

“I don’t much want to leave while she is still angry,” Elsa replied. “In case.”

“I’ll get you back,” he said, almost sharply. It would not end like this. Not them. He stepped round to help Elsa with putting on the bracers, something which she had never taken to. “And she’ll forgive you. I’m going to be putting on the stirrup so that you or any of the others can fly Toothless as well, not just me.”

“That is a risk,” said Elsa quietly.

Hiccup sighed. “I know. But so is only having me able to fly him. I think I’d rather take this risk than that one.”

Both of them seemed to struggle for words after that, as they finished going over each other’s armour. Elsa agreed to settle the shortbow across her back, but turned down any hand weapon other than the Gronckle iron knife, and Hiccup had to agree that it was probably for the best. Hiccup went over Toothless’s saddle and tail one last time, checking every joint and piece of metal, stowed away a waterskin in the stripped-down pouches, and forced his hands not to shake every time that he noticed that they were doing so.

When he could avoid it no longer, he stuck his head into Elsa’s room. She had a slate across her knees, the futhark carefully written across the top of it in Anna’s neat hand, and beneath it in less flowing letters the word _Anna_. With everything else that had been going on, he was surprised that she had still been practising. But then again, that was the first word he had ever shown her again.

“You ready?”

Elsa looked up, and nodded. The fire was dying down, but Hiccup pushed aside the urge to tidy up the wood and build up the fire, letting them out into the chill, foggy day. It was not raining, but the air felt vaguely damp anyway, seeping little tendrils under clothes and into boots. Even Toothless seemed subdued.

They had agreed to meet at the academy, the unspoken words being that they should say their goodbyes before they did so. Although Stoick and possibly Spitelout would be there, it would be as members of the war council, not as fathers.

Anna caught them at the edge of the village, flinging her arms around Elsa and clinging tightly. Without saying a word, Elsa scooped her close, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and stood there for a long moment in the aching-cold mist. Hiccup swallowed, turned his eyes away, and wished that he had been able to spend longer with his father before Stoick had needed to hurry away and check up on the others who would be going. But he knew, as well, that any parting would be much harder than them.

“I have to go,” Elsa said, finally. Anna’s hands tightened into fists. “Anna. I have to go.”

Anna pulled back, but grabbed Elsa’s hands. “I’ll see you again,” she said. “I’ll always see you again.”

Without replying, Elsa squeezed Anna’s hands, then drew away altogether. She turned back to the path to the academy, and Hiccup had to hurry to keep up with her paces. When he dared to look at her face, her jaw was clenched, and flakes of ice glittered at her temples. He reached for her hand, but she caught his eye and shook her head gently. Rather than press, Hiccup simply nodded, and stayed at her side as they trudged on through the half-frozen mud.

The academy seemed a long way away, on foot, but he wanted to preserve Toothless’s strength as much as possible. The narrow rock path was frozen and slippery, and Hiccup cursed multiple times beneath his breath. It was still easier to think about that than to consider what was waiting for them.

He was not in the least bit surprised that Astrid was there before them. She was sitting on a crate, in rough-looking chainmail beneath a leather tunic, and as he had largely expected her longbow was slung across her back. The dressing was gone from the side of her head, revealing an ugly dark scab matting through her golden hair, but it at least seemed to have settled. As they entered, she looked up and nodded curtly.

“Any sign of the others?” said Hiccup.

“Spitelout and Stoick just went in search of the twins,” she replied. “Snotlout’s outside somewhere, keeping to himself. Fishlegs will probably be here soon enough.”

Fishlegs, of all of them, had not wanted to be a fighter. He had just wanted to be able to defend his family, had said that even when the arena was still the arena. Seeing him in armour was going to be strange, as well.

Hiccup nodded, then swayed on the spot as a low burring filled his head. He recognised it, and groaned as much at the recognition as at the dull pain that accompanied it, throbbing in his bones and reverberating down his spine. Anger stabbed at his temples, sharp and terrible, but he concentrated to curl only one hand into a fist as the Hobblegrunt padded out of one of the cells, scanning her eyes across them.

“I do not have the time for this right now…” Hiccup muttered.

“That is…”

Astrid trailed off, then drew her breath in sharply, just as another wave of anger rocked Hiccup’s thoughts and made his muscles tense as if he were somehow trying to coil to pounce. It rose in him like a wave, the knowledge of how unjust it all was, and somehow instead of being frightened of the idea of his own death he was angry at the possibility, angry that Alvin would _dare_ to attack them.

“What the _fuck_?” Astrid said.

The air grew colder, until Hiccup felt ice form at the corner of his mouth and hurriedly brushed it away, hand shaking. He looked over to Elsa, who was pale-cheeked but standing straight, and as she clenched her own fists mitons rolled into being on them, glittering-bright over the brown leather of her gloves.

“No,” breathed Elsa. The first step that she took towards the Hobblegrunt became a stumble, but then she hauled herself upright and held out one ice-clad hand towards her. The Hobblegrunt’s head waved, then shifted up slightly, on eye-height with them again. Her eyes were nothing more than slits of black against yellow, mouth slightly parted for her teeth to shine through. “ _Aan_.”

The hand which had been stretched out, flat-palmed, snapped into a fist. Spines of ice sprung up from the ground between them, safely clear from either but three feet high and wickedly sharp. With a snort, the Hobblegrunt hopped back, colours rippling on her skin like petals flickering in a gust of wind.

“I do not need your _protection_ ,” said Elsa, though it sounded as if her teeth were gritted. She took a deep, almost panting breath. “I am _not your young_.”

The Hobblegrunt’s colours faded, to ashy-grey with a faint pinkish hue, and the ache in Hiccup’s head subsided again. The air remained chill around them, but Astrid lowered the axe she had drawn somewhere in the time that Hiccup had been entranced. He shot her a glance, but she simply caught his eye and shrugged before turning back to Elsa.

Murmuring something in Marulosen, Elsa waved away the spines of ice and walked closer to the Hobblegrunt. The Hobblegrunt kept her head at their shoulder-height, mouth closed and shoulders down almost submissively, sniffing first at Elsa and then specifically at Elsa’s hands, at the ice sparkling there. Finally, she grunted, as if something had been settled, leant her nose into Elsa’s palm and left it there.

“I have no idea what just happened,” Astrid muttered.

If he were honest, Hiccup was not sure either. Mercifully, Elsa looked round, as if remembering that they were both there, with removing her hand from the Hobblegrunt’s nose. “She is coming with us,” she said. “With me.”

“You mean–” Astrid began, then caught herself and pursed her lips.

“She thought that she needed to protect me,” Elsa said. “But she sees that she is wrong. She will come with me.”

“Are you still flying with Toothless?” Hiccup said. “Or do we need to rig up a bridle?”

Elsa looked back to the Hobblegrunt again. Her scales had taken on an almost metallic edge, shades of red and purple ghosting across her. “Rope, please,” said Elsa.

As the effects of the Hobblegrunt left, Hiccup felt strangely weakened, and concentrated on not letting his knees shake as he walked over to the storeroom. The door was ajar; they always had been bad at remembering to close it. With a sigh, Hiccup hauled it the rest of the way open, then drew his seax without thinking when he caught sight of the person inside.

“Heather?!”

She stood up from the crate on which she had been sitting, goosebumps on her arms and no cloak in sight, and raised her hands to him. With the sound of running feet, Astrid seemed to appear at Hiccup’s side, and he heard Toothless rumble low in his throat – not quite a growl, but only one step away. Hiccup grabbed the handle of Astrid’s axe where she had raised it again, only for it to be almost ripped out of his hands again.

“What are you doing here?” Hiccup said, sharply. “How did you get out?”

Part of him was relieved when Heather looked ashamed. “The guy that was on guard overnight? Bucket? I tricked him into coming into the cell to check on me, then tripped him up and locked him in. He’s all right, just… in the jail cell. I left him the food and water.”

It was strangely typical that the day on which he was supposed to lead his first war party would turn into such a total cock-up. Hiccup sighed.

“Right. Well, you chose the wrong place to hide out. We’re going back, and this time I’m going to let Spitelout choose who guards you. Come out.” He released Astrid’s axe, and stepped forward to grab Heather by the forearm.

“No!” said Heather. She dodged his grab. “Please – I want to come with you.”

Astrid snorted, a bitter laugh. Hiccup shook his head. “Heather, don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t just a rescue mission; we’re going to fight.”

Going to war, close enough. But Heather planted her feet and looked at him defiantly. “I know. I made the smoke for you, remember? And I’m not going to sit by while my parents are captured.”

“I’ve already had to tell one person that they’re not coming,” Hiccup gestured to his cheek, “and been punched for it. I’m not scared of you. And you’re not coming either.”

“Hang on,” said Astrid. Hiccup pressed his lips together and shot her a frustrated look, but there was something calculated in her eyes and his annoyance softened. She spun her axe in her hand to offer Heather the haft. “Go on, take it.”

“What?”

“This is a fight, not sightseeing. Show me you can fight.”

Heather took hold of the axe, but she held it clumsily, using both hands even though it was supposed to be a one-handed weapon. She looked up at Astrid uncertainly, but then her expression hardened, and Hiccup was honestly shocked by the change it wrought on her. There was something in her eyes that was willing to kill.

Drawing her knife, Astrid dropped fluidly into a fighting stance, knees bent, weight on her toes. Heather echoed it a breath later, shifting her hands on the haft of the axe until she held it more naturally.

“Come on, then,” said Astrid. She waved Heather closer with her left hand. “Attack me.”

If the others were not yet here, he supposed that they were at least not wasting time on this. Hiccup stepped smartly out of the way as Heather started to close the space between them, circling footsteps into a slow spiral that bought them cautiously closer together. Heather feinted with a step left, then lunged right and struck, shifting the axe to one hand and cutting in, horizontally, towards Astrid’s waist. Astrid easily sidestepped it, knocked the axe aside with the back of her forearm, and slashed her knife at Heather’s face.

Heather ducked. The knife passed inches over her head, and she used the axe to stop herself from hitting the ground before slashing it upwards at the inside of Astrid’s knee. Astrid spun away with a dancer’s elegance, dropping down as well and bringing her leg round to slam into Heather just as she was straightening up again. With a yelp, Heather rolled clumsily away, but staggered to her feet again and whirled to face Astrid with the axe held ready.

It was all clumsy, untrained, but there was something _instinctive_ about it. With her expression still hard, Heather grabbed something from inside her tunic and threw it to the ground; Astrid sprang back, just as smoke started pouring out again, thick and grey. It billowed up around Astrid, and Heather lunged straight into it. There was the sound of blows, grunts, and Hiccup was too shocked to move for a few heartbeats before remembering what Astrid had done; he ran in, grabbed the ceramic sphere that spewed the smoke, and hurled it as hard as he could out of the academy again.

Silence fell, broken by heavy breathing. As the smoke thinned enough to see, Hiccup realised that Astrid had Heather pinned to the ground, knife to her neck. But Heather had managed to get the axe turned between them so that its edge was to Astrid’s inner thigh, beneath the fall of her armour.

Astrid nodded, straightened up, and sheathed her knife. Only when she did so did Heather lower the axe, and seem to breathe again. “All right,” she said. She sprang from her knees to her feet in one fluid movement, and extended a hand to her as she straightened up. But her gaze turned to Hiccup again. “She can come.”

Though he did not question it aloud, Hiccup did raise his eyebrows pointedly.

“She can fight well enough to protect herself,” said Astrid. Heather allowed herself to be pulled upright, then handed back the axe. “And none of us will endanger ourselves unnecessarily on her part. She’ll be more use than not.”

“Astrid…”

Astrid glanced over at Heather again, eyes softening. “And… Alvin didn’t tell you about Elsa’s magic, did he?” she said.

Heather blinked, lips slightly parted but clearly too stunned for words, then looked over at Elsa. Elsa’s returned look was cautious, and she folded her hands in front of her, until finally Heather tore her eyes away.

“No,” Heather said.

The way that she had looked at the sight of the ice, the way that she had fallen to the ground. Hiccup understood a little more why Astrid nodded. “Exactly,” said Astrid. “If you were Alvin’s, he would have warned you just what you were facing. But he wanted you to think that dragons were all that we had, and if Berk was just a bit different that could have got you killed.”

“And you managed to hide away one of those smoke bombs even while I was watching you,” added Hiccup dryly. For that, Heather did not look so apologetic. “Just the one?”

With a roll of her eyes, Heather reached into her shirt, and produced two more of the smoke bombs. She dropped them into Astrid’s outstretched hand.

“Of course,” said Hiccup.

Elsa stepped over, reaching for the lacing on her leather plate. “Here,” she said.

“I couldn’t ask–” Heather began.

But Elsa had already peeled away the plate, and pulled it over her head. She all but pushed it into Heather’s hands, and when Heather went to protest again magic shimmered into place on Elsa’s shoulders and rolled down her, forming into a perfect, finely-woven chainmail shirt.

Heather gasped, and stumbled back, almost dropping the leather armour. For a moment, worry flickered in Elsa’s eyes, but then she seemed to see fully the look of amazement on Heather’s face. Heather slowly bought the armour to her chest as her eyes traced over the glittering ice; when Hiccup looked closely, he could see that it was smaller rings of the six-in-one that drew the links more closely together, making it impossible for any arrow to creep through.

“Maybe leave that for the time being, though,” said Astrid, pointing to the ice. “It’s pretty visible. When we get closer, though.”

Elsa nodded, and let the armour shimmer away again, to leave just the dark green shirt that she wore beneath. She started to undo her bracers in turn, not quite so skilfully, and Hiccup was just weighing in his mind whether he should send for the chainmail that sat on their table still, when he heard the pounding of wings outside that had to be Barf and Belch.

Time was up, and Elsa was offering the leather armour in exchange for one of her own making. He supposed that he did not have time to argue with that. “All right. Then we need to go ahead and get moving. It’s time for us to take this back to Alvin.”

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last act: The Blood Arc
> 
>  **Content notes:** From here on out, it gets violent, with human-vs-human and human-vs-dragon violence. I will be giving more specific warnings in the following chapters.
> 
> I swear I did not plan for this arc to start dropping over Christmas and the New Year. /o\ Uh... happy holidays?

In the spitting rain, and the shadow of sunset, they attacked.

The first blasts, and only the first blasts, would be a surprise; Hiccup had known that from the beginning. While the others hung hidden above the clouds, he and Toothless dipped below, waiting for the flashes of spyglasses to give away the three Outcasts positions. Once he was sure of them all, he dropped to Toothless’s back and dove in, the wind howling in his ears as they shot through the night sky.

Toothless fired, three times, tight and precise. Each one shattered the shining black rock of the island, sending down huge boulders that crashed through smaller spines and rattled down the mountain, and even above the wind and the thunder of the rock Hiccup heard men screaming. As soon as the first strike boomed through the sky, Astrid dropped through the clouds, appearing at Hiccup’s side with curls of them still clinging to Stormfly’s wingtips. Heather looked pale in the darkness, holding tightly to Astrid’s waist. Together they shot down towards the huge gates of Outcast Island, Hiccup watching for any signs of movement, Astrid focused only on the doors themselves.

Hiccup risked a glance over his shoulder to see Barf and Belch, huge barrel safely in their claws, heading to the destroyed cells that Hiccup had pointed out to them through a gap in the clouds. The movement of the air should, if they were right, be enough to carry it through the entire cave system. He saw Fishlegs, as well, heading to the shape among the rocks which Hiccup had only seen as they approached the island with some daylight remaining, and which he suspected was a forge of some sort. Well, it at least had sense not to have one of those built into the main structure.

Fire blazed from Stormfly’s mouth, and Hiccup shaded his eyes and squinted but watched as closely as he could. She started from the bottom and worked up, and both knew that Stormfly was likely to use up all of her firepower on this action, but it was too important to risk anything else. At least she would still have her spines. There was not enough time to weave back and forth across the join as would have been ideal, but still the molten metal seeped deep into the joint, and as Stormfly moved up and left the iron to fade white-yellow-red in her wake Hiccup was satisfied with the solidity of the results.

Stormfly ran out of fire still a few feet from the top, but it was far enough. Hiccup waved for them to back up, far enough that the doors slamming open would not strike them but close enough for him to hear, dimly, the beginning of shouts from inside. Barf and Belch gave their double roar of triumph, and Hiccup looked round to see faint curls of smoke coming from the direction of the roof that he and the escaping dragons had destroyed before. It was only a little, though, and he knew that the rest of the choking, world-darkening smoke would be inside.

Then all that they could do was wait. His heart pounded in his chest, hands shaking slightly on Toothless’s saddle not from cold or fear but from the half-thrill in his veins. The others hung around him, wings soft patterns in the air, and from the corner of his eye he saw Elsa on the Hobblegrunt’s back with a glowing ball of ice cradled in her left hand, watching it cautiously.

Judging how long to wait felt like the hardest part. He needed as many of the Outcasts as possible near the doors, but not to have waited long enough for them to start seeking another way out. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the dim shouting and the hammering on the inside of the metal, trying not to let the panic from inside flood over him in turn. More than likely, it would be a stampede, bodies crushing against each other in the rush to the doors, the people at the front unable to move with the ones behind them. He tried to tune out the fear, to concentrate on the sound and movement of the voices themselves, and judge when it might sound like the hundred or so people that were supposed to be inside.

The distinctive sound of Alvin’s voice cut through the shouting, and Hiccup’s eyes snapped open. He gestured to Astrid, and she hollered for everyone to back up as Hiccup and Toothless flipped backwards in the air, climbing and building distance before turning to focus on the gates far below.

He took a deep breath. Thought of dead men with forgotten names, and dragons chained in filthy underground pens.

“Let’s do this, Toothless,” he breathed. He pressed himself down against Toothless’s back, and they plunged down through the air. The wind screamed, whistled around Toothless’s wings in that inimitable _Night Fury_ sound, and Hiccup felt the pressure on his chest and saw grey at the corners of his vision but clung on with freezing hands as Toothless drew in his breath.

 _Fire_. A touch of Hiccup’s knee, the slightest shift of his weight, and Toothless fired as hard as he ever must have done to take the siege towers down. It boomed in the air, and Hiccup heard the shrieks of metal and stone and human voices all mixed together as the doors were slammed open, inwards, one ripped half away from its hinges and ripping into the solid stone of the floor.

The Outcasts inside flooded out among the smoke, pushing and shoving past each other, some falling to their knees to heave or vomit through the dim smoke. Hiccup held up a hand, fist clenched, for the other riders to hold back, with the sick recognition in his gut that they might barely have to raise a weapon. He could still hear screams from inside, and knew that it was pain, and not fear, behind them. There were people lying still where the doors had been, and what his eyes could only parse as _pieces_.

When he was sure the others were not about to sweep in, he cupped his hands around his mouth, and sought the figure of the Outcast Chief among the swirling smoke. “Alvin!” he shouted, putting as much behind it as he could. “Come out and face us!”

The twang of a crossbow; he grabbed at Toothless’s saddle and worked the tail instinctively as they rolled sideways in the air. In response, Stormfly shrieked, and spines whistled back through the air to the ground. Hiccup shot Astrid a look, but she was grim-faced, gaze still on the ground. When Hiccup looked back down, he saw a man clutching his arm, a Nadder spine having pierced it cleanly through, a crossbow at his feet.

He sat up, made sure his grip with his legs was firm, and called again. “Alvin! Come out!”

“Or what?” Alvin bellowed back, striding out from among his men. He was in a cloak and a leather tunic, not his full armour, a sword at his side and a crossbow ready in his right hand. “You’ll kill them all?”

Hiccup swallowed down the bitter taste in his throat. “Fight or negotiate, Alvin! Your call!”

Alvin looked around him. Holed up in their walls, the Outcasts would have been able to outlast the dragons easily, but outside even seven dragons must have looked like a dangerous option. In a wave of blue, Stormfly flew down to rest not far below Toothless, just far enough apart that their wings would not entangle. Astrid had her bow ready, carefully angled, with the arrow nocked but not yet drawn.

“Mirrors,” she said, when Hiccup looked across. He could not hear the word, but recognised the shape of it. Elsa’s magic must have folded away with the volitmaglaer; he hoped it had not hurt.

He frowned down again, looking for the flash of light off a mirrored surface, but there was so much metal that it was hard to be sure of any more than one. “Take off the cloak, Alvin!” Hiccup added. Whether or not Astrid could hit the volitmaglaer at this angle, Stormfly certainly could, but she could well injure or kill Alvin in the process.

Alvin looked around, perhaps in search of support, but few of his people were armed and far more were injured. Even those who did have crossbows seemed loath to raise them.

There was a chill in the air, and with a lurch Hiccup felt fear twist, hard and tight, in his gut. He grabbed at Toothless’s saddle, fighting the urge to bolt, the terror that seemed to shoot down every limb. Then it faded, and he blinked, still breathing fast; looking round, he saw Elsa and the Hobblegrunt drawing down lower than any of the other dragons, the Hobblegrunt’s skin rippling bright yellow against the dark clouds.

Not just anger that she could produce, then. A few deep breaths of cold air pushed the worst of it away, and Hiccup turned back to Alvin. He was not wholly surprised that the man seemed unaffected; Alvin had said that he knew what was in his head, and what was not. But there were a few Outcasts who looked rather more shaken, and more than one that had fallen or slumped to the floor. Whether that was the Hobblegrunt, or injury, it was harder to say.

“The cloak!” Hiccup repeated. With visible bad temper, Alvin reached up and undid his cloak, tossing it to the ground a few feet in front of him. The volitmaglaer glittered out among its folds.

Hiccup caught Astrid’s eye, and nodded. The arrow that she loosed flew fast and true, and Hiccup saw the light as the glass of the mirror broke.

This time, the cold air was definitely not to do with the Hobblegrunt. Light shimmered on Elsa’s shoulders, then rolled down her into the form of armour – not rings, but plates, a little like the leather that she had given to Heather and a little like the armour from Arendelle. A late, lingering ray of sunlight glanced off it, shining white-blue.

“Negotiation, Alvin?” said Hiccup. “Or will you try to fight?”

Alvin’s jaw jutted angrily, but he dropped the crossbow to the ground, then sent his sword after it. “All right, Hiccup. Make yer offer.”

Hiccup glanced around the uneven, rocky surface, then gestured for the others to remain in the air while he guided Toothless down to land. It was raised and set apart from the open area around the gates where the Outcasts had spilled. He dismounted stiffly, very aware of the weight of the armour on his shoulders and the helmet on his head, and waited for Alvin to climb up and join him.

Almost as soon as Alvin reached up and hauled himself onto the surface of the rock, cold air rolled across them. Alvin looked over his shoulder just as thin walls of ice crept up, encircling the Outcasts.

He grunted, brushing off his hands. “More than last year. Mildew said she were the cause of that cold in the summer.”

“We aren’t here to discuss Elsa,” said Hiccup sharply. His left hand rested on the hilt of his seax, but he kept his right lingering on the back of Toothless’s neck. “We’re here to negotiate terms.”

“Not exactly a treaty table.”

“You didn’t give us time for that.”

Alvin did not deny it. He own massive hands curled into fists and came to rest on his hips. “So, what do you plan with me men? Decided it’s overdue to kill us all?”

Hiccup swallowed, and tried to ignore the crawling feeling in his stomach. “I didn’t want to kill anyone, Alvin.”

“And yet you did.” Alvin smiled, though there was not a trace of happiness to it. “You are learning, boy. I said there was a lot you could learn here.”

Throat tightening, Hiccup could not find words, for at least a moment.

“And there’s your first lesson,” continued Alvin. “Sometimes you do things that you don’t want to. I don’t know yet how many of my people are dead down there. How many are dying now.”

“Then maybe don’t talk so much.” Hiccup finally managed to find his tongue again, although it still felt hard to breathe. Worst of all was knowing that Alvin was right, that people would be dead or dying, injuries that Outcast Island could not help, at least not now. “Are there any children on the island?”

Another humourless snort. “No child born here in twenty years has lived through its first winter.”

Hiccup could not say whether that part was true or not, but he could well believe it. The winds and tides made Outcast Island more inhospitable than Berk, and they could not build up stores from farming. “Then there’s none in danger now,” he said, though it was a poor excuse for a response. There was a glitter in Alvin’s eyes that might have been calling Hiccup and the others children still. “How many Outcasts are there?”

“A hundred and twelve.”

“It’s on you whether they live or not,” said Hiccup bluntly. It was not true, not quite; it would be Hiccup’s word in the end. Alvin was the one with the chance to be the hero, but Hiccup would be the killer if Alvin chose wrongly. “I don’t want everyone here to die. Their sentence was banishment, but it doesn’t have to be here. Another island, further west, with good land.”

“A better prison,” Alvin sneered.

Hiccup shook his head. “A new land altogether. We’ll take you by dragon, across currents that boats can’t pass. Give you somewhere to _live_ , not just exist.”

“All of ‘em?” said Alvin. “The murderers and rapists, too?”

“I will honour our laws,” Hiccup said. They were not his to change, after all. Especially since they varied from island to island, people to people. “And then it will be up to you to uphold them, if they consider you their chief.”

Alvin’s lip twitched, and Hiccup was honestly not sure whether it was with amusement or with derision. “And what are your terms?”

“That your people do not fight us today,” said Hiccup. “That you do not return to the archipelago once you have been sent away. And that if you do work with dragons, that you do not use them as some tool of conquer, do not turn them into weapons.”

“That last one’s yer own addition,” said Alvin. “Not Stoick the Vast’s.”

They were all Hiccup’s, in fact, but he held his tongue and did his best to stare Alvin down. It was not something he had ever thought himself particularly good at, but he supposed that he had spent all of his life staring down people bigger than him, and this one had not even spent years watching Hiccup’s every humiliating mistake. All the same, he was surprised, when Alvin spoke, at the hesitation hinted to in his tone. “I ain’t some king, Hiccup, to tell them what to do.”

“No. But I do appear to be some _conqueror,_ ” Hiccup replied, the word more bitter in his tongue than it had ever been when speaking of dragons, “and if I order, then they will have to obey.”

This time, Alvin truly smirked, though there was still no humour there. It was far more a rueful acknowledgement. “Sounds like you really ‘ave been learning.”

“Where’s the Skrill, Alvin?” added Hiccup, sharply.

For the first time, Alvin looked surprised. His face turned stony, and he actually drew back as if Hiccup had somehow threatened him with a physical blow. His eyes flicked up and down Hiccup’s form, the mismatched armour and the dragon at his side, the helmet strapped on to stop it from falling into the sea. Then his eyes narrowed, and he turned, scanning the sky until his eyes fixed onto Stormfly and the two figures on her back. “The girl…” he growled.

“Where is the Skrill?” repeated Hiccup. “Have you removed it from the ice?”

It took a moment for Alvin to collect himself. “I ain’t having any men of mine thawing that thing. That’s the Berserkers’ game.”

“So it was a bribe for them.”

“I prefer to think of it as an enticement,” Alvin said, apparently unconcerned with the further implications of his work. Or perhaps it was a more appealing thought to let Berk and the Berserkers battle among themselves. “You’re Stoick’s son, I’m sure you’ve been to more than a few treaties over the years. Seen the amount that Berk used to pay them to keep their gold-lust sated. Funny, ain’t it, how gold or blood can mean the same to them?”

“Then that is one of the terms as well,” said Hiccup. “You release the Skrill into Berk’s hands. We will not see it used as a weapon of war again.”

A muscle in Alvin’s temple twitched, but he looked back to the ice behind him, the groans of the injured muted but not completely muffled. “Very well,” he said finally, though it sounded as if it were through gritted teeth. “I’ll show you where it is. And then you can see to what you intend to do with my people.”

Hiccup took a deep breath. It was all that he could do to not let the _relief_ show on his face. For all that they had attacked, it had all been in one sharp blow, had not been a grind and a horror and the hours of hand-to-hand fighting that he had feared, and could have expected if they had not had the dragons at their sides. It was not _easy_ , that was not the word, but it was… less than it could have been.

“Good,” he said simply, feeling like he had to say something. Alvin watched him, cautiously, and for the first time that day Hiccup felt truly, if bewilderedly, hopeful again.

 

 

 

 

 

He took Heather, with a murmured promise that her parents would be the next ones he asked after, and Elsa with her armour still gleaming. Even Alvin looked intimidated at the sight of Elsa, ice plates shifting with a silken, knife-blade sound and occasionally catching the low rays of the sun to shine red-orange. Her eyes were hard, and even without a weapon to hand she felt markedly _dangerous_. Even Hiccup could see it. But Heather was the one with fury in her eyes, and when Alvin was not looking Elsa grabbed her wrist to prevent her from drawing her sword.

The others remained, with their dragons and the Hobblegrunt, to guard the icy makeshift room full Outcasts. It had seemed that Elsa was confident enough to walk away and trust her ice to remain, and the last thing that Hiccup was going to do was question her.

Alvin explained curtly that he was keeping the Skrill well away from the other dragons, and indeed away from the bustle and heat of the main settled caves. He led them across the surface of Outcast Island, through twists and between brittle walls of the dark glassy rock.

“Where did you find the Skrill?” said Hiccup, as much to break the silence as for actual information. He didn’t like the way that the rock around them made his voice sound.

Alvin sighed, but did not pause his steps. “We were sailing north, since those fogs cleared. Found it frozen in an iceberg. Upside-down,” he added, at more of a mutter.

The knowledge that Skrills could survive being frozen had come from the Haddock’s own Book of Dragons, for all that it had been Fishlegs who remembered it. Of course, the book had not exactly said whether the Skrill was conscious while he was frozen. A chill crawled down Hiccup’s spine at the thought of a dragon permanently locked in ice, watching and thinking but unable to move.

“Is that where you found Frigg’s Hearth?” Hiccup added.

“Aye,” said Alvin. “It weren’t our work, though. We just set a few fresh fires, turned over some earth. Cooked ourselves some boar while we were waiting.”

Despite it all, Hiccup felt a rush of relief, remembering the white of bone among the black-grey ashes. “So you found the side of some tragedy, and used it as a prop?” he said aloud, not bothering to restrain his disgust.

This time, Alvin snorted. “You think that dead men care? Whatever happened, the dead were long dead, the living long gone.”

“And any sign of who did it?”

“Why do you care?” Alvin shot back, with a glare. This time, though, Hiccup was not the one captive, and he had no fear in meeting it. Hand twitching towards where the hilt of his sword would otherwise have sat, Alvin shook his head. “There were some signs of dragons. Scorch-marks, scratches. Don’t know whether they were at the time or later,” he added, more calmly than Hiccup might have expected, “but they were there. No writing saying ‘Meatheads Woz Ere’, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes. “As if the Meatheads could write,” he replied, for want of a better answer. He was uncomfortable with something so huge happening within only a couple of days of Berk, especially now the fogs from Dragon Island had lifted and made the seas so much more passable.

It was possible that it had been dragons, he supposed. In the days before the Red Death fell, before they had started to find a tentative sort of peace. Only a year ago, but a world away. It was not unthinkable that another island had come to blows with the dragons in a way that Berk had mercifully managed to avoid, and that after one too many violent encounters it had been abandoned altogether.

Part of him hoped that it was not the case. That dragons had not done this. But with the dragons, he at least knew their reasons, and if it had been humans then it meant that there was something else altogether going on.

“All right,” said Alvin, as they reached a narrow doorway cutting straight into the rock. It looked like a cave entrance, but light filtered through from whatever was around the corner of the tunnel. “This is the way to the Skrill.”

It didn’t take more than a glance for Hiccup to frown. “There’s no way you’d get a Skrill through that door.” Unless it was a hatchling small enough to carry, of course, but surely even Alvin would have mentioned that. Even Toothless would not be able to fit through the tunnel.

Toothless growled. Hiccup’s hand went back to the hilt of his seax as he looked around sharply, and he felt the air grow more chill around them. Alvin went to speak, but Hiccup silenced him with a raised hand and a pointed look, and they stood still and silent for several long heartbeats. Hiccup could not hear anything above the pounding in his ears, but he was still not comfortable.

“Alvin,” he said, forcing his voice level. “You have guards on the Skrill.”

“Two of ‘em, inside,” said Alvin. “There’s another entrance on that side, bigger. That’s how we got the ice in. But unless you fancy walking for another hour,” he jerked a thumb to the entrance, “this is yer way in.”

He did not like this. Alvin had been too shocked at the mention of the Skrill for it to be anything other than truth that he had one, and if it were not frozen then Hiccup could not imagine it being silent now. There was no sound around them except the start of rain, and the faint moaning of wind moving over the top of the jagged rocks. But if they were a usual group of soldiers, this would be the perfect place for an ambush, and Toothless was still looking around warily.

“I can stay with Toothless,” said Elsa, quietly. Hiccup caught her eye, but shook his head. She and Toothless were the ones with the force, the ones that Alvin’s men would struggle to contend with. If

Toothless could not approach the Skrill, then he needed Elsa to do so.

Heather cleared her throat, sounding uncomfortable. The bruises of Outcast Island had faded by now, he knew that, to faint brown-green marks on her arms. But there were fresh marks around her wrists, and in the borrowed armour she looked far harder than she had on Berk, soft and friendly or shivering and scared.

“Heather,” said Hiccup, with a nod to Toothless. She nodded in return, and drew her sword as she stepped closer to the dragon. All the same, Hiccup wished that she had kept her weapon sheathed; he could see now the way that her hand was trembling, making the swordpoint dance on the air. It was unlikely that Alvin missed it. “Elsa?” he added, looking back to her.

Elsa’s eyes met his, blue and steady, and then she looked at Alvin. Not challenging, not angry, but level and unafraid. Her armour was still intact, plates across her chest and back and pauldrons in place, mail in a glittering sheet beneath and reaching all the way down to her wrists. Only once Alvin was watching did she clench her fists, smoothly and deliberately. Ice crawled to form mitons that connected straight to her sleeves, covering her arms, and around her neck the neckline of the mail went from a smooth circle, crawling up, until it covered her throat as effectively as any gorget.

“I’m with you,” she said.

He could not even express how relieved it made him. “Good,” he said allowed, and made sure his expression was hard again when he turned to Alvin. “You first,” he said. “And tell your men to keep their weapons down. You’ve seen that I’m serious.”

It stuck in his throat to reference it, the fact that he had killed and given orders that would kill, but perhaps Alvin would respect it in some twisted way. Hiccup had always respected it, before he had known what it felt like. Now perhaps he still did, but he hated it as well.

But Alvin looked up over coolly. “Aye,” he said. “That you are. Come on, then, I’ll show you the beast.”

The tunnel was truly narrow; Alvin had to turn half-sideways to fit through the gap, and Hiccup made sure to keep his left hand at the hilt of his seax as he followed them through. Elsa stepped in behind him, a faint blue glow from her ice lighting the edges of the rocks around them. Even Alvin glanced at it, as it reached the walls beside him.

Only a few paces, though, and then there was a sharp right turn into some sort of cave, lit with firelight. Hiccup followed Alvin out, but no sooner had Elsa stepped around the corner then there was a crack, like the sound of a whip or of a breaking bone, and her ice vanished in an instant as her legs went from under her. Hiccup spun just in time to catch her, her face colourless, terror and pain tightening her features.

“Alvin–” she choked out, and pushed him away.

He twisted around, trying to support her with his right hand as he drew his sword with his left. Alvin was a couple of paces away and now, raising his hands to show how empty they were, he stepped aside to make clear Hiccup’s view of the entire cave in which they stood. It was warm, too warm, and he should have realised that it was the heat of people even before he saw that they were in not a true cave but a hollowed-out rocky arena, metal bars and stitched dragonskins forming a ceiling above them. Over two dozen men stood at the far end of the room, heavily-armed but standing so still as to be silent, dark in the smoky firelight of the room.

“Well, well,” from the centre of them, one pushed forward, appearing first as a helmet with long curving horns before he came fully into view. Hiccup’s heart sunk in his chest as Dagur, volitmaglaer glinting on his chest, stepped to the front of his men and smirked. “I was wondering when you’d turn up. Did you miss me, Hiccup Lie-Smith? Because I sure missed you. Stabber, get him.”

He gestured to Hiccup’s left, and Hiccup spun in time to block the first slash of a sword from the man who lunged at him. Elsa pulled herself completely out of his hold, and he saw a glint in her hand that must have been her Gronckle iron knife. A second Berserker drew his sword and waded in, and Hiccup heard the ring of steel-on-steel from behind him even as he deflected another lunge, then slashed out, movements hot with anger. His sword slammed into the Berserker’s arm, and blood sprayed into Hiccup’s face, sticky against his cheek.

With a grunt of pain, the Berserker bought the hilt of his sword slamming back towards Hiccup’s head. Hiccup ducked, raising his arm for protection, and it skimmed off his helmet with a dull thud that did not even manage to be painful. Anger still burning, fuelled by a cry of pain from Elsa and the sound of metal there, Hiccup stabbed upwards, but his opponent jumped backwards and Hiccup’s sword only skimmed over the front of his leather armour.

“Oh, for Thor’s sake,” said Dagur, loudly, as the Berserker swung again and Hiccup dodged one more time. “If you want something right, you need to do it yourself.”

The Berserker’s left hand caught Hiccup in the right side of his chest, even as he tried to dodge, and he was sent back a step. But there was a hot anger burning in him, the growing sensation of _betrayal_ and _ambush_ , and for a second Hiccup was sure that he would fight every one of the Berserkers in the room if it just meant that he and Elsa would get out of this.

Then there was a sickening crunch, and Elsa screamed, the sound ringing on in the room. Hiccup did not block the next blow, and the Berserker’s sword glanced across his right thigh in a slash of fire. Worse was the blow against the left side of his helmet, knocking him to the stone floor and sending his seax from his grasping fingertips. He tried to grab for it, right-handed, only to look up properly and see Dagur again.

Elsa was face-down on the floor, mouth bloody, with one of the Berserkers kneeling over her and pinning both of her arms into the small of her back. Dagur stood over her, crossbow in his hand and pointed firmly at the back of Elsa’s head.

“Now, Hiccup,” said Dagur casually, “I suggest that you do just what I say, unless you want your _wife_ to suffer the consequences.” He crossed the few steps to Hiccup’s seax, crossbow not wavering from its target on Elsa, and kicked the blade beyond Hiccup’s reach before retreating away again. “And don’t worry,” he added, with a smile that showed too many teeth. “I’ve got my men outside as well. Your dragon will be ne–”

He did not even finish the word before there was a Night Fury shriek from outside, and Heather shouted Hiccup’s name. The Berserker battle-cry rang in answer, and Hiccup started shaking, watching the crossbow pointed at Elsa’s head, the mirror mocking them from Dagur’s chest.

Dagur shrugged casually. “Well, will be now, apparently. And your friends will join us soon. Light!” he shouted over his shoulder.

Two of the guards hauled on chains at the back of the cave, and with a rattle and a grating sound the dragon skins above them were hauled back. There was not much light outside, only a weak moon barely piercing through the clouds, but the air above them did at least make it feel less oppressive. The downside was that he could hear more clearly Toothless scream, one more time, then the sound abruptly being cut off.

A shudder ran through Hiccup’s body, and he prayed to Odin that Toothless had not been killed.

Dagur sighed. “Well, I _was_ hoping that you’d turn up during the day, so that whole ‘light’ thing would have worked a little better.” He shook his head, as if it were Hiccup he were disappointed in. “Ah, well. You are trying, Hiccup, you really are. But no matter. Soon, my men will escort your friends here as well, and then… we’ll deal with you once at for all. Won’t _that_ be better?”


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alvin attended Syndrome's "no monologuing" lecture. Dagur did not. I've tried to keep these warnings vague enough to not spoiler people but specific enough to warn for any major triggers.
> 
>  **Content notes (short version):** Blood, blood, blood... and death.
> 
>  **Content notes (long version):** Human-on-dragon violence/torture best compared to the training of fighting dogs; threats of dragon-on-human violence; human-on-human violence in the form of a widespread melee, with a particular note for damage to hands; disembowelment; violent character death of both OCs and at least one named character. And yes, some of the killing is going to be coming from the protagonists.

“You know, I wasn’t really sure that you’d fall for it,” said Dagur. “Even after all these years that we’ve known each other, all the games we played…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I still worried that you might be smart enough to catch on. “But Alvin pointed out to me that everything had gone to his plan so far, so I had to acknowledge that he had a good read on you.”

He shook his head, as if rueful, and folded his arms across his chest. One of his men had taken over pointing the crossbow at Elsa, while she and Hiccup had been hauled to the centre of the arena – and Hiccup recognised it now, it was an arena – and forced to their knees. Hiccup had not been able to resist as his wrists had been bound in front of him, and though Elsa had tried to pull away just once the crossbow had been pointed in her face and even she had been forced to let herself be tied.

“–son of a shit-eating wolf, get your filthy coward’s hands–” Heather’s words echoed down the short stone corridor, at least until they were cut off by a blow that seemed to slam into the air. Hiccup craned to look over his shoulder as she was dragged out by her hands, tied together the same way that Hiccup’s were, and with another man with a drawn axe behind her.

As she saw the men in the room, she stumbled and fell to one knee, but the Berserker dragging her by the hands only tugged on the rope more sharply to make her scramble to her feet once again. Some of her hair had come loose and was sticking to her face with what Hiccup hoped, in the shadows, was only sweat. Her eyes came to rest on Alvin, and he saw her harden into a scowl again, but as the two Berserkers hauled her on over to Dagur she quickly moved her gaze to him.

“And this must be Heather,” Dagur said. “A pity. I’d heard that you’d really been playing your role quite well, but from the sounds of things,” he looked over both her and one of the Berserkers who had accompanied her and who now threw her sword to the ground, “you’ve changed your mind.” He smiled at her, cold and toothy. “What a pity.”

Her eyes narrowed. “In a hundred years,” she snarled at him, making the words sound like a promise, “the gods will piss on the grave of your cold corpse, and it will not be for wrath nor vengeance but because _they neither know nor care_.”

Face twisting in fury, Dagur backhanded her. His gloved hand dulled the sound of the impact, to nothing more than a thud, but still Heather was thrown to the floor by the blow and her head cracked against the stone ground. She tried to rise, but swayed dangerously, and stopped on one knee with a hate-filled gaze fixed on him.

With a deep breath, Dagur seemed to force his expression calm again, although his eyes still seemed to flash. “You remind me of my sister,” he said. “Both of you, actually. Hiccup and his absurd ornate little shield, and now you thinking that you’re so clever with your curses. But let me tell you,” he grabbed Heather’s hair, twisting, and she failed to stifle a cry as he wrenched her face upwards. “The gods will remember me when I bring back the Berserker Empire, and _you_ will be a nameless pile of bones.”

He threw her down again, and she caught herself on her hands and knees.

“Dagur,” said Hiccup. He wished that his voice did not sound so weak in the huge space. “Your fight isn’t with her. It’s with me.”

“Yes,” Dagur replied, drawing the word out like a snake’s hiss. “Because you _did_ start this, after all. Lying, keeping the dragons…” his eyes fixed on Hiccup, dark in the firelight. “What does it feel like, to know that you caused those men’s deaths, Hiccup? Does it matter? Or do they not matter; I mean,” he added, scoffing, “they are only Outcasts, after all.”

Off to the side, Alvin eyed Dagur up and down, jaw clenched. Dagur had apparently not deigned to give him a weapon.

“It matters,” said Hiccup, quietly.

Dagur snorted, shaking his head dramatically, and Alvin shifted in place. Hiccup’s hands curled into fists, shifting against each other even where they were tightly bound. “Are they your first kills, Hiccup?” He strode closer, eyes gleaming, and Hiccup felt disgust coil in his chest. “Were you close enough to _see_ it? Or was it from afar?”

Hiccup’s skin crawled. He knew the expression that Dagur wore while killing animals; he did not want to imagine what it might be while killing men. Perhaps it was a mercy that Dagur did not force a reply out of him before there was a ruckus outside, shouting and cursing, metal clattering. Hiccup’s head snapped round as he recognised the voices of his friends, but as soon as he opened his mouth to shout the Berserker holding him clapped a bloody leather glove across it.

The other riders were hauled in one by one, each held by two Berserkers who would have seemed absurdly large in any other situation. Astrid was first, still wrestling against the hold of the two armoured men, but when she saw Hiccup and Elsa already on their knees she seemed to falter and the fire left her gaze. She allowed herself to be pulled over and forced to her knees beside them. In her wake, the others seemed cowed as well, and silence fell as each of them in turn was brought over to form a semi-circle at Dagur’s feet.

Dagur looked around them, and laughed. It started as a chuckle, albeit with a smile too wide for Hiccup’s comfort, then seemed to bubble up and well out until he was whooping, the sound echoing back from the walls until it was almost deafening. Dagur bent over to put his hands on his knees, slapping his thigh, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Even as he finally drew quiet, the sound seemed to take a while to fade in Hiccup’s head, and when Dagur looked up with a glitter in his eye it was all that Hiccup could do to breathe with the hand across his mouth.

“And so, this is it!” Dagur declared. He threw his arms wide. “The heir of Berk and his…” his eyes trailed over the others, “ _elite forces_. A bunch of children on wild beasts. Well, you needn’t worry,” he added, patronising tone creeping back in, “we’ll probably keep your dragons alive. Why waste the work you must have put in to break them?”

Despite everything, Hiccup looked across at Alvin. The Outcast’s lips were pressed tightly together, brows drawn to a scowl as he regarded Dagur. Even as Hiccup’s gaze lingered, Alvin did not seem to notice.

“So,” Dagur continued. “First off, let’s clear up a few of your little lies, shall we, Hiccup? Because I’ve been finding out about all those little lies that you’ve been weaving since the spring, oh yes. Old man!” he called, to somewhere behind him.

Hiccup frowned, not sure what to expect, and felt a fresh wave of anger as Mildew slunk out from between the Berserkers. Smirking, Dagur waved Mildew right to the front, where he could survey them all; Mildew’s face remained unreadable for a moment, before he smiled.

“Oh, yes,” said Dagur, “I learned some very interesting little details since I’ve been here. Like the fact that instead of _protecting_ me from a wildling attack,” he drew a knife, pointed it at Hiccup, then slowly swung it round to Elsa, “it was _you_ all along?”

Dagur shook his head, disbelief still lingering in his voice.

“The little witchling, under my nose the whole time. And let me guess, you were there to protect the dragons, hmm?” He leaned closer, but Elsa remained silent. Blood was drying on her lips, smeared on her chin, and blackening bruises were visible where the neck of her shirt had been torn. “Disguised yourself, did you? So not only has Berk been hiding the dragons, but now I find out they’re hiding magic as well. I’m sure your allies will be interested to hear about that.”

Hiccup felt his heart hammering in his chest, and his hands tightened until his fingers were pressing painfully into his palm. There was no way that Dagur knew just how much was endangered with Arendelle; there was a risk that Mildew had said that Anna and Elsa came from Arendelle, but honestly Hiccup was not sure that Mildew had cared enough to think of that. Mildew had barely seemed to care for Anna’s existence at all.

“Hiding magic, in fact, right in your _bed_ ,” said Dagur. Hiccup felt his cheeks grow hot, humiliation pricking down his spine at the memory of what Dagur had seen. The other riders might not know, and Elsa might have gone through what had happened with her pride intact, but Hiccup had not forgotten the panic that had driven him to declare himself married in the first place, or the mortification of how Dagur really had found Elsa and Hiccup in the same bed. “But luckily, even if you’ve utterly _embraced_ magic, some folks,” he tapped the mirror on his chest, “remember what dangerous creatures they are. Especially when I learn that she’s one of those very _wildlings_ that Berk was supposed to be so very against…”

“Mildew, you craven arse,” Astrid snarled, breaking across Dagur’s words and actually managing to get one foot to the ground before the Berserker behind her kicked her ankle out from under her again. She looked him over, disdain on her face. “Slaughtering your own sheep and planting the bodies isn’t enough for you now? You decided to sell us out to the Berserkers?”

Mildew’s hands tightened on his staff. “Dagur and I have interests in common,” he said.

“Oh, so you both fuck sheep?” said Ruffnut, wickedness in her voice.

Tuffnut laughed, but there was outcry from among the men and one of the Berserkers behind Ruffnut drew his knife with fury in his eyes.

“No, Vicious!” shouted Dagur. The din settled down. “We haven’t decided which one we’re leaving alive, remember.” His focus was still on Hiccup. “If you’re good, maybe we’ll let you choose. Of course, I would just use her,” he said, with a last disdainful glance at Heather, “but somehow I’m not sure that Berk would believe her stories after everything she’s already done. No, one of you will make a much better messenger.”

He reached out and put the point of his knife to the centre of Elsa’s forehead.

“Well, not this one, of course. But one of you.”

The hold across his mouth had worked loose enough for Hiccup to twist his head loose, and he pushed clear enough to speak. “Berk held your island at bay before, Dagur,” he said. The Berserker tried to grab him again, but Dagur whirled and pointed the knife straight at Hiccup. Without speaking, though, it was clear what he wanted. “When you had far more experienced military leaders,” Hiccup added.

He saw the twitch of Dagur’s muscles, the anger at the barb. Gods, just that day he had slid knives beneath Anna’s skin and hoped that he would never need to do it again. But now he needed Dagur focused on _him_ , hurting _him_ if need be, just to keep those blades away from the others.

“Berk has never fought a leader like me,” Dagur hissed.

“No,” said Hiccup. “We fought better.”

Dagur lunged forwards, and the next thing that Hiccup knew the knife was in front of his eyes, only inches away and trembling with each of Dagur’s angry breaths. Hiccup forced himself to meet Dagur’s eyes, to not even acknowledge the blade, let alone draw away from it.

Then Dagur laughed again, this time even more unhinged than the last. “No, no!” he said, turning on his heel. He sheathed his knife as he walked away, but Hiccup did not feel in the least bit comforted. “I get it. No dragons, no weapons… all that you’ve got left is that little liar’s tongue, isn’t it, Hiccup? So you bandy your ugly little words about.

“But this is how this will end,” said Dagur. “One of you will be sent home to Berk, with a few little tokens of our…” His fingers stroked over the hilt of his sword, “affections. They will be able to report that the rest of you are dead, that Berk has no heir, and that your precious dragons have been captured and your precious wildling killed. That way they might put up enough of a challenge to be interesting when the new Berserker Empire comes calling. And even if you held out in the past, well,” he smiled again. “Part of me does wish that I could keep you alive to see what is coming for your little village.”

He turned to his men and strode towards them, gesturing for them to part as he did so. They parted like a metal sea, revealing a pair of large wooden doors with a huge oak log locking them in place, and a pulley system that led round to a lever at the side. Hiccup recognised the design only too well.

“Dagur,” said Alvin sharply, voice carrying. “Just kill him and be done with it. Don’t waste your time gloating.”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Dagur snapped. “No! No, Alvin! Your role is played. Now,” he gestured to himself, “it is _my_ turn.”

He threw the lever, and the log was hauled with a jolt. Dagur grabbed one of the doors, and another Berserker hurried forwards to grab the other, so that they could achingly slowly peel it open.

The whole arena was dark; the pen itself was impenetrably black. A growl sounded from the darkness, a sound that rattled down Hiccup’s spine and turned his legs to water; it sounded ancient, wild, like a _predator_. Something glinted in the darkness, and Hiccup heard the other riders drawing snatched breaths as there was a shift in the darkness, claws on stone and scales on scales and the drag of rope and leather against rock.

The dragon hissed, and not only did its teeth glitter but something sparked in the darkness, not the red-white of fire but the blue-white of something else altogether.

It was not until Dagur swept a torch from its bracket that Hiccup could even tear his eyes away from the darkness. Dagur’s eyes were mania-bright in the firelight, as he strode back towards the terrible darkness, and Hiccup knew what was in there and did not want to see it and lose all possible hope of being wrong.

“Hiccup,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Berserker Island’s _new_ ally.” He swept the torch into the pen. “I call him… Deathkiller.”

At any other time, the name would have been funny. But Hiccup could not laugh; apparently, even the twins could not laugh. The firelight lit the dragon inside purple-black, with rows of spines about its head and white teeth shining in the darkness. Its eyes were contracted to slits in the torchlight, bloodshot-red, and another long low growl left its lips.

Dagur grabbed one of the thick ropes on the floor, winding it around his forearm, and half a dozen other Berserkers followed him into the pen to take hold of further ropes, unwinding them from stakes and iron loops, and between them they led the Skrill out into the centre of the arena.

It was more leading than dragging. The Skrill did not fight, following almost tamely for all that its tail scraped along the ground and its claws ground on the stone. Every so often, a muffled sound of delight would creep from Dagur, but Hiccup did his best to ignore it and keep his eyes on the Skrill.

“Uh, Hiccup,” said Snotlout from further round the half-circle, in what might have been a poor attempt at an undertone. “Isn’t that Skrill supposed to still be _frozen_?”

Hiccup dared a glance at Alvin, who was looking grimly unhappy but not at all surprised. “That’s what they wanted us to think,” he replied, softly.

The firelight better showed the subtle purple sheen to the Skrill’s scales. But it also revealed scars, deep silvery cuts through scales and flesh, the sort of marks made by repeated wounds, time after time, year after year.

“Well, Hiccup, what do you think now?” Dagur said. He held his arms wide, weapons rattling at his hips, armour glinting dully. The Skrill at his side gleamed. Whistling, he called over another two men, carrying something made of leather and steel between them. For the first time, the Skrill turned his gaze towards him as it growled, but Dagur tugged on the rope around his arm and it fell still and silent again as the two Berserkers, nervousness in each line of their bodies, knelt either side of it and strapped the leather into place.

Hiccup felt as much as heard the meaty sounds of metal cutting into flesh. The Skrill moaned, a low pained sound, but Dagur seemed unaware of it as he chuckled to himself all over again. Pain stabbed at Hiccup’s neck, his throat, and he choked on nothing as fire exploded behind his eyes. He grabbed at his throat with his bare hands, sure for a moment that he would find bloody wounds, but his fingers met with clear skin and only the pain, ringing all around his neck, remained.

Blood dripped to the stone ground. Dagur looked at Hiccup as if he had lost his mind, then shook his head. “Well, well. Perhaps too long around the dragons has driven you wholly mad.”

The Skrill’s eyes fixed on Hiccup, and slowly he peeled his shaking hands from his neck again.

“No matter,” continued Dagur airily. “But perhaps it will make it more fitting to have a dragon put you out of your misery. Because you see, the best – the _best_ part,” he tugged the rope again, and the Skrill slowly unfurled its wide wings, sending Berserkers swearing and hurrying aside. “And, really, the most fitting, is that for everything your ancestors did, everything your Hamishes ever tried, our training methods worked.”

Hiccup looked for the silvery lines of scars on the Skrill’s neck, and realised with dull horror that they were hidden beneath the leather strap and its wicked blades. Scars from years of training, of captivity, written on the dragon’s skin.

“You monster,” said Fishlegs, voice shaking.

Dagur gave the rope in his hand another tug. “Bitá,” he said, sharply, and the Skrill lunged towards Fishlegs with a snarl. Cursing, the Berserkers hauled back against the ropes that Hiccup suspected were barely restraining it. “The title is _Chief_ ,” he added. “Now, I’d like everyone to get on their feet and line up, if you would. I think it’s time for Hiccup to decide which of you gets to see Berk one more time.”

 

 

 

 

 

They were dragged to their feet and into a rough row. When Astrid fought back against the Berserkers holding her, she was slammed against the ground, a boot planted on the back of her neck, and when they pulled her upright again Hiccup caught her eye and shook his head. That was not going to be their way out of this.

The problem was, he had no idea what _was_. Hiccup’s mind tumbled over on itself, trying to think what he could do or so to even delay them, give him time to think, let alone stop them altogether. As they were lined up, a number of Outcasts trouped in, and the Berserkers greeted them with grunts and mumbles and interspersed among them around the edge of the arena. More of the Berserkers appeared around the metal cage itself, crossbows in their hands and fingers probably all too twitchy on the triggers, until there was an audience dozens strong waiting for them.

“Berserkers, Outcasts, the day that you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived,” said Dagur, turning to encompass his audience. “Berk thought itself better than you, better than us, but finally we will rid ourselves of Berk’s dragons, its wildling, its ridiculous excuse for an heir,” he paused to give Hiccup a particularly venomous look, “and the absurd prison walls which it has built around you.”

Drawing his sword, Dagur swept it along the line of them. Even from where they stood, Hiccup could see Fishlegs shaking, see Snotlout’s ashen face.

“One day, your name will be scoured from stones for your disgrace,” said Heather, through gritted teeth. “Those who remember you will be ashamed to do so, until you are forgotten.”

Her voice was bold enough to ring through the arena, and Hiccup saw more than a few of the Berserkers glancing in her direction. Dagur spun to point the sword at her, even advancing a step, then shook his head. “No. No, there is a better way to deal with you. Bloodstain!” he shouted. “Shun! Bring them in!”

Hiccup craned to look over his shoulder as footsteps and rattling metal sounded behind them, and finally another pair of Berserkers pulled two more prisoners into the arena. A man with a thick brown beard, heavy-set, and a well-built woman with black braids about her shoulders. Both were gagged and had their hands tied in front of them, but they made muffled sounds and started to struggle as they came into full view of the arena.

A wordless cry broke from Heather, then a wrench of breath so rough that Hiccup could hear it and turned towards her. “Mother! Father!”

She tried to wrench free from the Berserker on her left side, putting in a well-placed kick to his knee that made his leg buckle beneath him. But before she could take advantage of it, the Berserker on her right slammed his fist into her face. Her mother screamed, and Hiccup could not hear whether Heather made a sound, but when she looked up blood was dripping from her nose and her lip was split. She looked venomously at the Berserker still holding her, but the second man grabbed her as well and forcibly held her still.

“Yes,” said Dagur. “I thought it was time for a little family reunion.”

He gestured to another of his men, who dragged a wooden crate out of the Skrill’s pen and towards Heather’s parents. Shun and Bloodstain, who Hiccup vaguely recognised, pulled Heather’s parents over as well. Dagur waved to her father’s hands, and in quick brutal movements Bloodstain cut the ropes on his wrists and pinned one hand to the table, a second Berserker stepping in to grab the other. Heather’s father made muffled protests, and tried to pull away, but the two burly warriors held him in place.

Dagur swung his sword, almost experimentally, as he crossed to the table. Heather’s parents looked up, and Hiccup watched as fear hardened to defiance in them.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” said Dagur. “I am Dagur the Deranged, Chief of the Berserkers. We were not the ones who captured you, but since we’re taking control on this island, that includes managing prisoners as well. Now, from what I have heard, I believe that you were told that your safe release was dependant on your daughter’s behaviour.”

He swept an arm round to encompass Heather again. Her eyes were wide, and Hiccup suspected that there was fear behind it; blood was still trickling from her nose and lip, dark against her skin in the firelight.

“So,” Dagur continued, “Heather did manage to gain us the copy of the Book of Dragons which we required, so I think we can call that a success. However, considering she managed to get caught leaving Berk–”

Dagur slammed the hilt of his sword onto the man’s outstretched hand. Heather screamed; her father did as well, muffled behind his gag, and sagged in the hold of the Berserkers for a moment before trying to wrest away again.

“–and then got recaptured by the Berkians themselves–”

With another sickening crunch, Dagur did the same to the other hand. Hiccup could see splintered bones among bloody flesh, and heard himself shout Dagur’s name. He tried to wrench free, but the Berserker on his right arm pulled back hard enough that he thought for a moment his arm would be pulled from his socket. With a snarl, Hiccup kicked with his left foot, but it only connected with solid greaves that probably sent as much of a rattle of pain through his stump as it did the man’s leg. He saw the punch coming from the Berserker on his left, ducked and largely missed it, but it still skimmed the top of his head and knocked him into the one on his right. An arm was immediately wrapped around his throat, and _tightened_ , until the world became hot and tight and the one breath that he managed to drag in only served to make his chest ache and his heart pound.

He saw the others struggling as well, but only dimly, as his vision started rapidly to swim. Heather was still screaming, though the sound was somewhere close to rage as it cut through the air, and Astrid actually got one hand free before she was grabbed and thrown to the floor, a heavy boot landing on her left forearm with a snap that cut through the shouting. She roared, still tried to rise, but her hand was clawing at the floor as the Berserker standing over her kept his foot on her arm.

“–and of course,” Dagur continued blithely, as if his various captives had not started fighting the holds on them around him, “she then went and joined them when they came to attack us, which is just an outright betrayal.”

Without missing a beat, he grabbed Heather’s mother by the shoulder, and ran his sword through her chest. Blood poured out, her eyes widening in shock for a split second before her body slumped and Dagur retrieved his sword in the same moment.

Heather’s scream became a barely-human howl. Her father watched in horror, and his knees buckled but the Berserkers on either side of him held him upright as his wife’s body collapsed with a wet thud. Blood continued to pulse from the wound, each spurt growing weaker. Dagur stepped quickly beyond the range of the spreading pool of blood, and simply raised his voice over Heather’s as he continued.

“Honestly, I’m sick of the number of people who have been doing that lately.” He wandered onwards, flicking the blood from his sword but not really bothering to fully clean it. “So I want to make it clear that betrayal will not be tolerated. I will never have it said,” he glanced at Alvin, whose scowl had only deepened, “that I am a backstabber.”

In a slick flash, Dagur’s sword sank into Alvin’s abdomen, and he slashed sideways. Alvin did not even scream, just gave a snarl as with one hand he clutched at the slippery pink ropes of his guts spilling out, reaching for Dagur with the other. Dagur stepped neatly out of range, and Alvin fell to his hands and knees.

There was uproar from the Outcasts, and weapons being drawn. Hiccup flinched, muscles tightening in expectation of an all-out brawl, but at a snap of Dagur’s fingers the Berserkers struck.

Blades flashed, short fast knives rather than axes or swords. The Berserkers had been scattered around the Outcasts, and all around the arena in perfect synchronicity they attacked, sinking knives into exposed throats or the backs of heads. The only shouting was that of the Outcasts, pained and cut short, giving way to the thud of falling bodies and the clattering of useless armour and dropped weapons.

Silence fell in the arena again, broken only by Heather’s sobs. Hiccup felt his stomach heave, and had to clamp down on the urge to vomit as he looked around and saw the slumped bodies, at least two dozen of them, and Alvin unconscious or dead with his intestines spilled around him.

Dagur waved a hand at Alvin’s form. “Dump him in the sea,” he said, almost casually. “I’m sure there’s something that will deign to eat him. Oh…  but keep the helmet. I’d like a trophy.”

“ _Tuulev tiinohunoatiit, Dagur luratkolo_ _,_ ” said Elsa. Her voice was thick on the Marulosen words, and blood stained her teeth. She was trembling as she fixed her eyes on Dagur, despite the crossbow barely inches from her. “ _Amvel Paral tiinokaajeniit._ ”

“Silence!” Dagur shouted. His voice rang. Breathing hard, he turned to Hiccup, and pointed the bloody sword at him. Hiccup could smell it now; not decay, but death, the stench of blood and meat mixed with opened bowels. “All right, Hiccup, time to choose. Which one stays alive?”

He could not look round at the others. Hands shaking, Hiccup dragged in a breath, and desperately tried to think of something, anything, that he could say. “Dagur,” he croaked, “it doesn’t have to be like this. You can make allies, you can work _with_ the Skrill and not torture it, you–”

“Time’s up! Well, if you can’t decide, I’ll just have to do it for you.” Dagur turned to sweep his gaze along the row. “Hmm… yes…” he pointed out Snotlout. “You. The cousin, yes? Snot… Snotface?”

“Snot _lout_.” Snotlout’s hands had curled into fists.

A genuine frown crossed Dagur’s features. “Strange. I’m sure you answered to it for the last four years… still, no matter. Rather fitting, I suppose, to send you back to say that _you_ are now their last heir… ready the rest of them.” He looked at Hiccup, and smiled wolfishly. Blood was splattered on his cheek, and Hiccup did not even know whose it was. “And you, Hiccup, will be last.”

They were already in a rough row; Hiccup did not realise what Dagur meant until a hand wound into his hair and wrenched his head back, exposing his throat. He tried to pull away, but the grip tightened until it burned, ripping at his scalp, and his breath quickened in his throat again.

“Maybe I’ll feed you to the Skrill, afterwards,” said Dagur thoughtfully, as he walked to the far end of the line. Elsa’s gaze remained level upon him. “Better than rabbit, I would imagine, right, Alvin?” he added, with a sneer, as he passed Alvin’s slumped form. “Some good fat mixed in with the muscle… and plenty of bones for strength.”

Hiccup’s own words seemed to wrap around his throat and constrict him. It seemed so recently that he had angrily told Alvin how the dragons should be fed, tried to drag them away from starvation. And now Dagur was using those same words for a creature with blades embedded in its flesh.

Dagur turned to his men, and punched his sword into the air. “Berserkers!”

They roared back, a wordless grunt of noise as they saluted with their bloodied weapons in turn, and Dagur turned with manic, bright eyes to Elsa. A nod of his head, and the Berserker beside her finally lowered the crossbow and stepped away, as she closed her eyes and held her head high.

Dagur chuckled to himself, raising and readying his blade to strike, and Hiccup let out a trembling breath that clouded on the air in front of him.

He felt cold.

He did not have time for a thought that was any clearer than an explosion of realisation. Elsa’s eyes snapped open, white from corner to corner, and the volitmaglaer on Dagur’s chest shattered in a spray of silver and glass. He let out a shriek, and as spines of ice shot up around Elsa as fine as needles and higher than her head the Berserkers either side of her were forced to leap away with yells of their own.

Elsa turned her blank eyes down the rest of the line. “Duck!” she shouted, hoarse-voiced.

There was no time to question; Hiccup did so, and saw his friends doing the same along the line. Elsa threw her head back, and with a glittering cold sound light exploded from her chest. It became barbs of ice, as long as arrows but shaped like a Nadder’s spines, spraying in half a sphere from where Elsa stood. They rang on metal, crunched on flesh, and men howled as the ice struck them.

Some of them shattered against the metal cage that made up the roof of the arena, dim against the clouded night skies. They seemed to spread, crystallising into sheets of ice that spanned from metal to metal, dulling the sound of the world outside and cutting off the crossbows beyond.

Dagur howled in fury, and bought his sword wheeling down, but in another sharp flash of light Elsa caught it on a shield of ice on her right arm. The sound of metal on ice shrieked around the arena.

“Kill them!” Dagur shouted. “Kill them all!”

Elsa’s left hand swept up, the ragged remains of rope frozen to her wrist. A line of ice arced up from her touch, forming a jagged barrier of spines that cut between the other riders and some of the Berserkers holding them. Even those who were not cut off jumped away from the sudden eruption. But Hiccup recognised the shape of the spines, the way that they sat, thick clear rods interspersed with knife-fine blades. He lunged out of the grip of the Berserker who still held him, slashed the ropes on his hand against one of the blades and felt them slice cleanly through. Grabbing one of the spear-like rods, he pulled it cleanly away and whirled with it just in time to catch the descending sword of one of the Berserkers.

There was fear in the man’s eyes, he was almost surprised to realise. Fear and anger all bound up together, and the Berserker’s next slash was choppy and unskilled. Hiccup knocked it aside with a blow of the ice staff, and took no small pleasure in slamming the butt of it into the Berserker’s face. He felt the crack of bone, and blood spattered, but he was already ducking and turning as he heard ice breaking beside him and knew that the second Berserker was closing in. The second man’s axe whistled past Hiccup’s head, and Hiccup stole a glance in Elsa’s direction to see her with a long ice knife in one hand and the shield on the other, deflecting Dagur’s wild attacks as he slashed and stormed his way around her.

Astrid gave a wild cry, and Hiccup glanced round to see her dodging beneath a Berserker’s axe and using the staff, one-handed to sweep the man's feet from beneath him. His axe clattered to the ground, and she grabbed it to sweep back upwards again. Beyond her, he could see Snotlout, hands still bound but with another of the staves, kick one of the Berserkers away and dodge the stab of another, then deliver a slamming headbutt to a man foolish enough to be within range and without a helmet.

They were still outnumbered, though, so terribly outnumbered. A blade glanced off his pauldron, close enough that he could hear the whistle of the air, and he responded by whipping around the staff to crack across the man’s cheek.

The world became a whirl of blades, of the shouts of Berserkers and the answering battle-cries of his friends. Hiccup’s breath came fast, raw in his throat, as he dodged the blades of two Berserkers who became three Berserkers, and Hiccup had never appreciated how good a swordsman his father was until he found himself fighting someone else. Stoick had beaten him, perhaps not every time but most times, but the three Berserkers between them could do little more than keep him dodging, weaving, blocking, sweat trickling down his skin and every bone in his arms jarring.

Thunder rumbled above them, and the air seemed to turn thick. The Skrill snarled and lashed in its ropes, fewer men than ever holding it and its body shaking though it did not move.

“Deathkiller!” Dagur shouted. He bought down his sword again, wildly, and though Elsa caught it on her shield the blow was with such force that it knocked her to the ground. With wild glee in his face, Dagur pointed down at her. “ _Lectýr!_ ”

The Skrill reared up, wings spreading like purple-black sheets, and threw back its head to roar at the sky. Thunder boomed in answer, and Hiccup knew with horrific certainty just what Dagur had ordered it to do.

Elsa’s head whipped round as well, eyes blue again, and she bought up her left arm to shield her head just as the Skrill fired. Light filled the air, searing-bright, and the crack of sound that filled the arena was enough to make Hiccup think that for a moment his very head had split in two. His eyes snapped closed instinctively, but he could still see the blazing light, hear it sparking, smell and taste hot metal in the air. When the light abruptly stopped, he opened his eyes to a world that seemed to have been extinguished in its wake, and even blinking fast he could barely see Elsa’s pale hair and skin, curled behind a wave-like sheet of ice that curled around and over her. Sparks still crackled on its edges, shone in its depths.

Dagur bought his sword down with another cry, and Elsa rolled aside before it came shattering down through the spark-strewn ice. Snatching in a breath, Hiccup did his best to tear his eyes away, knowing that the Berserkers would not be blinded for much longer than he had been. He did not turn in time before something slammed against his helmet, sending lights flashing in front of his eyes and driving his breath from his lungs. He was knocked to the ground, skidding on the dirt, but as he looked up he realised that he had been pushed to where their weapons had been piled, shields and axes and one of the Gronckle knives tantalisingly close.

Right-handed, he groped for it, panting for breath. One of the Berserkers lunged in above him, grabbed the knife, and then pain exploded behind Hiccup’s eyes as the knife was driven straight through his right hand, scraping on bones and sinking into the ground.

A scream ripped from him, the shaking of his hand making it feel as if the knife were sinking into his flesh a dozen times over. The pain lanced from his arm, forcing out the scream until it seemed like he had no more air, and when he broke for breath it tasted like fire in his lungs and burned like molten metal all through his hand and wrist.

“I have him!”

The Berserker was shouting. It took Hiccup a moment to hear the words, a moment more to understand him.

“Chief! I have him!”

There was a pause, full of the sound of metal and the grind of pain. Hiccup fought not to writhe against the ground. He could not remain here, helpless; he scraped together his thoughts, and focused on the hilt of the Gronckle iron knife. Then Dagur shouted back.

“He’s left-handed, you _imbecile_!”

Hiccup grabbed the knife and wrenched it from his hand. The fresh wave of pain was hot and wet, but _less_ , and the feel of the knife in his hand cut through the haze of his thoughts. He realised, in the same heartbeats, that none of his people were killing the Berserkers who were attacking them, and that they would need to if they were to survive. And, more than that, that _he_ would need to be the first one to kill if they were to be willing to do so.

He rolled onto his back and slashed upwards with the knife. From where he came to rest at the Berserker’s feet, there was nothing stopping the slash across the man’s thigh, the artery that ran so close to the skin. The Gronckle knife cut through leather and flesh without a blink, and blood gushed out as the Berserker screamed. Blood poured over Hiccup even as he rolled away again, sheathing the Gronckle iron knife and grabbing his seax. He could not think about the death, not beyond hoping that the others had seen it, would know that they had to and that he would not hate them for it.

There was movement at his side; he turned, raised his seax to block the blow, neatly stepped aside from it and slashed, deliberately, at the Berserker’s arm. He could not look at the faces within the helmets, could not think of them other than as _Berserkers_ , as his blade flashed and almost in a trance he parried and wove and stabbed in return. A second time, his blade sank into flesh, finding the gap between the chest and the shoulder of a man in leather armour and reaching home. His blade and his reach might both have been shorter than that of the Berserkers facing him, but Hiccup could feel that he was faster, lighter on his feet, and his blade seemed to dance between them.

A wall of ice seemed to cut the arena in two, and he saw another flash behind it. But no lightning reached out for them, no dragon was among them, and he could only assume that Elsa’s ice would keep the Skrill from them.

Another opening, and his seax seemed to seek it out, sliding home to pierce the throat of the Berserker facing him. Hiccup felt the scrape of his blade against the man’s spine, felt blood rush over his hand and splash against his face and neck, but withdrew the sword and ducked another blow. He wished that he had his shield, but his right hand still throbbed with blood and pain and would be useless, and he was simply glad that no Berserker had it in their hands.

It was a melee; he only caught glimpses of the others among them, most of them now armed with steel instead of ice, all of them with their hands free. Heather had wrested free and fought her way to her father’s side, and as Hiccup had the chance to look round he saw Astrid throw herself backwards, dropping her axe at the last second to plant her hand on the floor as she flipped feet over head, and scooping it up again as she rose. In a spin, she turned to bring the stolen axe slamming down and bury it in the back of the Berserker approaching them. Her broken left arm was clutched against her chest, and she looked pale behind the dirt and blood, but the battle-brightness was still in her eyes.

There was no time to think; he blocked a low swipe with his prosthetic foot, in a shower of sparks, and slashed down into the exposed neck of his attacker. He could feel blood dripping down his chest beneath his armour, stickier than the sweat dripping down his back. His chest ached from breathing hard, his right arm was all but useless at his side, and all that he could do was fight.

Bodies littered the arena floor, Outcasts and Berserkers alike, hard to tell apart in the chaos and the flickering torchlight. All that Hiccup could be sure of was that none of his friends were among them. He heard Fishlegs roar, glanced around in time to see him lift a Berserker from the floor and throw him bodily, knocking two others from their feet. Tuffnut tackled a man’s legs only for Ruffnut to drive home the axe that she was holding, and all of them were streaming with blood, and Hiccup felt a coldness in his chest that they had come to this, to killing, when it had been the last thing that he had intended to come of this day.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed through the fight, knocking aside Berserkers more than really fighting them, until he came to the whirling furious form of Dagur. Through Elsa’s crystal-clear ice shield he could see the ice consuming the fabric of her clothes, and even the edges of her leather armour. Bruises were spreading across her chest and collarbones, and starting to bloom on her right arm where she blocked blow after blow that Dagur rained upon her.

“Dagur!” Hiccup roared. Dagur spun to face him, teeth bared and bloody, and snarled. Hiccup squared his shoulders. “You started this war!”

The words had haunted him, stuck in his mind, since Dagur had spoken them. There was something almost relieving to shout them back.

Dagur sprang over an Outcast body, leaping high, and bought down his sword with a howl towards Hiccup’s head. He was faster than any of his men. This time it was harder to move aside in time, to deflect the blade so that it whistled down beside him, and without pause Dagur was slashing towards him again.

“You will be killed,” Dagur snarled; “you, and your wildling whore, and your dragon’s bones will make my _armour_.”

He recognised Mildew’s words, wondered whether the craven fool had fled as soon as Elsa had struck back. But no; ice had crawled down the walls of the arena as well, closing off the Skrill’s pen and the doorway alike, and he had seen it but not had time to think of it. But he had not seen him, for all the tumult of the battle.

His distraction cost him. Dagur’s sword slashed sideways towards his chest, and Hiccup threw himself backwards but was not fast enough to avoid the tip of the blade that cut through his leather armour, slashed through his skin in a line of fire and the clacking pain of metal striking his ribs. Hiccup’s next breath was like a garrotte, slicing right across his chest, but he forced his left arm to obey. Parry, parry, deflect; he led Dagur on a dance between the bodies and across the blood-slicked floor, shoulder throbbing with each of Dagur’s two-handed swipes that he managed to block.

“You’ve been practicing,” Dagur hissed. He sounded pleased at the fact, that Hiccup could present any challenge to him at all. “Seems there’s been more secrets and lies, Hiccup.”

“Only one more,” Hiccup replied. With a flick of his wrist, he twisted Dagur’s sword aside, then slammed his right elbow into the man’s face. It made the pain in his hand worse, but it was worth it, especially as Dagur grunted and stumbled just a step. He managed to duck Hiccup’s next swing, but it knocked his helmet from his head, and when he looked up there might just have been an edge of uncertainty to his anger. “I’m not married.”

Dagur’s eyes went wide, and Hiccup took the opportunity, slamming the hilt of his sword into Dagur’s temple. For a heartbeat, he felt a sickening lurch, as if he were watching all over again the moment when Dagur broke the hands of a man who had done nothing but sail in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he knew that this was different. It had to be.

“Astrid!” He turned, shouting through a raw throat. She looked up from another Berserker that she had felled, blood streaking her face, her eyes shining. Hiccup’s heart felt heavy in his chest, but he knew what he had to say. “Get them out of here. Retreat!”

They could not _win_. Even if they were somehow to kill every Berserker in the arena, to free the Skrill, to escape, there were still Berserkers outside and probably more beyond. There had been perhaps a score of Outcasts in the room, but there would be three or four times that again. They needed the dragons, and they needed to retreat.

He saw Astrid say something to Heather, not all that far away, and Heather nod and slam her shield into one more Berserker. She grabbed her father under the arm, helping him to his feet, while Astrid moved to defend them and Elsa drew in closer as well. Hiccup looked around desperately for the others, needing to get the message to them, when he realised that Dagur was rising and dodged the flash of a blade again.

This time, it was not the sword. Dagur’s thrown knife whipped past his face, but as he raised his seax to Dagur again he heard it strike _something_ , the sound somehow unmissable to him through the ring of metal on metal still, and when Heather screamed again Hiccup looked round with horror in his eyes.

The knife had found a mark in her father’s neck, and blood streamed forth. Heather tried to press her hand over the wound, as if in some way hoping to stem it, but it gushed on past her fingers.

Dagur laughed, loud and manic. “Looks like your little rescue mission failed after all, Hiccup!”

Red rage flashed in front of Hiccup’s eyes. He flung himself bodily into Dagur, bearing them both to the ground, and dropped his seax in favour of punching Dagur in the face instead. It felt no better, even as the skin on his knuckles split and he punched a second time, a third, every muscle that he had ever used in the forge putting weight behind his hand, but it was all that he could do with anger and frustration and pain burning behind his eyes. Dagur tried to fend him off, grabbing his bleeding right hand and squeezing hard, but Hiccup could barely feel it through the fury. He wound a hand into Dagur’s exposed hair and slammed his head down against the ground, and only realised quite what he had done when Dagur’s eyes closed and his body fell still.

Staggering to his feet, Hiccup barely thought to grab his seax again, as one of the Berserkers started shouting and the words echoed to nonsense in Hiccup’s ears. Someone slammed their arm against his shoulder, and he tried to pull away, but when he looked around it was Astrid.

Astrid. He could trust her, her of all of them. Words bubbled in his throat but would not make themselves into sense, and she tugged him towards the exit. He saw Fishlegs propping up Heather’s father, went to ask why before he recognised the ice that had to be holding the man’s throat together. The others were all fighting, even Heather, desperate and messy and cut through with screams, and all of them were streaked with blood so thickly that Hiccup could not even have said whether they were injured or not.

His shield was slung over Astrid’s back, her own axe in her hand. “Come on!” she shouted, and he dragged himself from the haze to run towards the door as well.

“Are you–” he managed.

“I’ll manage.” Astrid backed away a step, raised her axe, and knocked aside another attacking Berserker. “Snotlout–” her words were cut off as the man lunged at her again, and she ducked beneath his blow as fluidly as if she were still fresh to the battlefield. Hiccup had to turn as well, but his tiredness made it harder for him to move, and the Berserker who slashed towards him almost caught his right arm. Hiccup deflected the blow, spun past, saw the hole in the man of the man’s chainmail where weak links were giving way and drove his seax home in one sweep.

It grated against bone, and Hiccup tried to pull it out but was not able to. The Berserker collapsed, and the seax was pulled from Hiccup’s hands so fast that it stung his palm.

“Shit!” He tried to grab the fallen man’s axe, but a blade whistled close and he had to pull back again. He dropped momentarily to his knee to avoid another blow, pushed to his feet and away in the same movement, and found himself with Astrid shoving his shield back into his grasp before she spun away to continue fighting their way to the door.

He fumbled for it with both hands, right twitching in response if not quite answering, and gritted his teeth as he pulled it into place on his left arm. It might not have been a weapon, but it was better than nothing, and the next Berserker to come close received a slamming blow that knocked his helmet clean from his head.

“Let’s move!” he shouted, moving to where he could better act as protection for Fishlegs and for Heather’s father. “Now! Elsa, take the front! Astrid, stay with me! We get out, we find the dragons. Move!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tuulev tiinohunoatiit, Dagur luratkolo. Amvel Paral tiinokaajeniit.” = The future will forget you, Dagur death's whore. And even Hell will banish you.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as last time: I've tried to keep warnings vague enough to not spoil, but specific enough to hit the main notes.
> 
>  **Content notes:** Human-on-human violence, including hand-to-hand, swordfighting melee, and ranged weapons; dragon-on-human violence and killing; continued focus on damage to hands; **eye scream** /injury to eye warning in particular. Again, some of the killing does come from the protagonists.

They closed into a tight formation as they neared the door, enough that he could start to see the others. One half of Snotlout’s face was caked with blood, Tuffnut was dragging his left leg and sticking close to Ruffnut’s right side, and Fishlegs’s leather tunic was slashed and streaked with gore. But they were all still standing, still fighting, and Hiccup knew that as long as he could keep them that way, he could get them off the island. It was their only chance now.

A wave of ice from Elsa’s hand shot up, filling the doorway, and even as Hiccup watched it slid into the tunnel like a moving shieldwall. There were shouts from beyond it, muffled, half-hidden behind the glittering, crunching sound of Elsa’s magic.

Fishlegs had to turn sideways on to pull Heather’s father through, and Hiccup waved for Astrid to follow him. “Go!”

“No!” she snapped, in reply.

He ducked another swiped sword from the thinning number of Berserkers, and with his useless right hand gestured to the doorway. “Go on, Astrid! I’ve got the shield.”

The shield and the metal foot, and between them it might be just about enough to keep at bay the lunging swords of the Berserkers, even as spikes of ice grew haphazardly from the ground to hamper them. With one last, tight-lipped look, Astrid hurried into the tunnel after Fishlegs, and Hiccup dived after her before any of the Berserkers could get between them. He put his right forearm behind the shield as well, but still almost buckled at the knees beneath the two-handed blow of a bastard sword that one of the Berserkers slammed down upon him.

Gritting his teeth, Hiccup steadied his shield, and thrust the edge of it into the Berserker’s exposed throat. Something crunched, and the man lost his grip on his sword as he staggered back, but Hiccup was already retreating as fast as he could along the tunnel, avoiding the slash of an axe, feeling his prosthetic bite against the ground to keep his grip.

From behind him, the sounds of fighting exploded again, and Hiccup clenched his teeth until pain shot through his jaw as he threw himself out of the tunnel after the others. Barely had he done so when spines of ice erupted from the ground to block the entrance, slicing straight through the outstretched sword-arm of one of the Berserkers lunging after him. Blood steamed where it ran down the ice, and the man roared and jerked but only succeeded in further ripping open the holes in his arms.

Hiccup knew that he had to look away, had to keep his attention on his friends. He looked up to see a sheet of ice rising like a wave over them, crossbow bolts embedded in it and shadowy figures on the other side, running around the top of the arena. They had only a little time.

“Dagur said he wanted the dragons alive,” said Hiccup, hurrying to the others. They were all breathing hard, dragging in what air they could. After the blood-bitter taste of the air in the arena, it was better, at least. “They’ll be taken to some sort of containment they must have prepared.”

“Are those Toothless’s claw marks?” said Fishlegs, with a nod to a stretch of rock. It was difficult to see in the descending night, and probably would not have been possible at all without the pale blue light of Elsa’s ice stretching above them. But there were fresh gouges in the stone’s surface, Night Fury-width.

Hiccup nodded, then caught himself and forced his voice clear and steady. “Yes. That’s him. Heather, did you see where he was taken?”

“They dragged me away first,” she said. The shield and axe in her hands both seemed too large for her, and every few seconds she would have to catch them from where they were starting to droop. “I didn’t see.”

“All right, then the marks are our clue. If anyone sees something that we can use as a torch, grab it. Otherwise, Elsa, I need you at the front so we can use your magic for light. And Fishlegs, I need your eyes. Snotlout, give me a hand.”

Perhaps not the best choice of words in the circumstances, but even Tuffnut did not pick up on it. Hiccup slid under the left shoulder of Heather’s father, keeping his shield on his own left side, and braced himself against the dead weight – no, he could not even think that term; the _weight_ – of the man. Snotlout hurried to the other side, an axe in his right hand now, and between them they managed to keep him almost upright.

“Ruff, Tuff, you’re on our flanks. Heather, use that shield to cover Astrid.”

Astrid’s eyes flickered over him, but he did not have the time or the will to read her expression before Heather was hurrying to her side. A shield took less skill to wield than a blade, at least at first, though to use a shield with true skill took time. And Astrid’s left arm was still held to her chest, making Hiccup grateful for the bracer probably now supporting it.

Shouts came from their left, Berserker, ringing with rage.

“When you’re ready, Fishlegs!” called Hiccup.

He could only think of it as retreat, not as fleeing, or the shame would have crashed down over him altogether. But it was hard to cling to that as they hurried between the twisted basalt and obsidian walls of Outcast Island, following the odd scratch or sign of passage, disrupted stones; Fishlegs and Elsa managed something between tracking dragons and tracking humans, but mercifully there were relatively few passages that would be wide enough to move a Night Fury, conscious or not.

Dagur had said that he wanted the dragons alive, as if he had truly thought that they would fight for him and his men. Hiccup hoped that lack of understanding would save them now.

The path that they followed dipped down, then Elsa grabbed Fishlegs by the shoulder and dragged him to a halt just before another turn of the passageway. Apparently without thinking, Fishlegs held up one hand in the gesture that they used to stop while they were on dragonback, and the group stumbled and staggered to a halt after him.

“Hiccup,” he said, voice tight, “you need to see this…”

Hiccup gestured clumsily with his left hand, and shield, for Fishlegs to take over from him again. They transferred Heather’s father over, and Hiccup nodded for Astrid to join him as he slid through the group to stand beside Elsa.

They must all have looked like demons, creatures crawling out of Muspelheim to wreak their revenge upon humans. But somehow on Elsa it seemed worse, in her borrowed leather armour and with blood matting black in her pale hair in the darkness; she looked both more Viking, and less human, than Hiccup had ever seen her look before.

As he drew closer, he realised that there was a glow of firelight on the rocks, and Elsa put a finger to her lips. Carefully, he peered past her and round the curve of the rock, to see a broader open area at the foot of stony cliffs, with large metal doors set into them. The smallest doors were only as high as a man, and a little wider than they were tall, but the largest pair were a size that Hiccup could only compare to a Monstrous Nightmare.

As he watched, silent, there was a muted Nadder’s scream, and with his sliced-through hand he still tried to grab Astrid’s arm to hold her back as she tensed beside him. Stormfly was dragged into their line of view by a group of Berserkers, all of them grunting and snarling, her mouth and tail both covered in bags of what Hiccup presumed was dragonskin.

Looking more closely, though, he spotted Outcasts among the men, and wondered whether they simply had not been betrayed yet, or whether they had been part of the betrayal. His suspicions only grew when Savage of all men strode into view, shouting and pointing with a thighbone – human or dragon, by its size, and Hiccup was not sure which would be worse – for Stormfly to be led to the smallest of the pairs of doors.

“All right,” Hiccup breathed. He scanned what he could see one more time, then turned back to the others and nodded for them to draw close enough that he would barely need to whisper. “We need to hit hard and fast. Concentrate on getting the dragons out, and they will help us fight. Heather, I want you to stay here with your father – I’m sorry,” he added, as she opened her mouth with protest in her eyes, “I need as many swords as I can. Fishlegs, take my knife.” He held his right arm out of the way so that Fishlegs could draw the Gronckle iron from its sheath. “It’ll cut through the dragonskin, leather, probably even steel if we need it to. Did anyone get the other knife back?”

“What, this?” said Ruffnut. There was a gleam in her eyes as she held it up. “It caught my eye.”

Hiccup glanced to Elsa, but she shook her head. Her ice, of course, was the other thing they had that could take on whatever chains the Berserkers could try to use. “Give it to Snotlout,” he said. “Right, we need to–”

Astrid’s axe appeared between them, and as everyone fell silent and looked, Hiccup realised that she was listening intently. She nodded to Ruffnut, then to the turn of the path where they had seen the Berserkers, and looked pointedly at the others as the two crept close to it again.

Then Hiccup caught it; the scuff of boots on stony ground, the slight shift of metal on metal. He raised a hand for the rest of them to remain still, as Astrid and Ruffnut reached the corner and readied their weapons in their hands.

His heart pounded in his chest. He had a suspicion of what they were about to do, and it sickened him to know that they had to. Dagur’s words echoed in his head all over again; perhaps he really had been the one who started this war.

At a sharp gesture from Astrid, both of the women lunged out of the tunnel in the same instant. There was the _shunk_ ing sound of metal sinking into flesh, then Ruffnut dragged one dead Berserker back into the tunnel and hurried out to help Astrid haul in the second. They dropped the two bodies almost on top of each other, and Ruffnut stepped out one more time only to reappear with a crossbow in each hand.

“Someone said hard and fast?” said Astrid.

It would not make up for all of the weapons that they had bought, but it would be a start. “Hard and fast,” Hiccup agreed. “Let’s go.”

 

 

 

 

 

It began with crossbow bolts. The Berserkers had no way of knowing where it came from, of course, but when bolts started burying themselves in exposed arms or throats, it took only seconds for swords to be drawn and for chaos to break out. Half of the men holding on to Stormfly’s chains dropped them in favour of their weapons, and the remaining ones shouted and cursed as she gave another muffled call and wrenched in their hold. The bolts kept flying from the darkness, and even the ones that clanged off armour spread more panic in their wake.

Hiccup had given the twins only one extra command: aim for the Outcasts among them. A few of the bolts went stray, but only one Berserker fell bleeding as several Outcasts were hit, and it did not take long for realisation to dawn.

“Treachery!” Savage shouted. He grabbed the Berserker nearest to him and slammed the end of the bone that he held into the man’s face, with a roar of fury. “You said that we would be spared!”

The man responded by drawing his own sword, screaming wordlessly, and launching himself into an attack.

In no time at all, the Outcasts and Berserkers were at each other’s throats, blades ringing and men shouting and screaming. The muffled roars of dragons only added to the chaos, and Hiccup’s heart leapt in his throat when he heard the sound of a Night Fury among them.

Hiccup and Fishlegs made it almost to the rightmost of the doors before anyone saw them, the flickering torches barely providing enough light for them to grope their way across the uneven ground. One of the Outcasts looked up, recognition flowering in his eyes, and opened his mouth to shout; Hiccup lunged forwards and bought his shield round, backhanded, into the man’s head. The Outcast staggered sideways, but was not thrown down, and slashed round with his sword accurately enough that Hiccup had to jump back out of range.

With a snarl, Fishlegs grabbed the man, and lifted him bodily off the ground. The rage in the Outcast’s eyes turned to shock as his helmet was jolted from his head, and then Fishlegs slammed him against the exposed rock beside them. Metal rang, but bone crunched beneath it, and the man went slack in Fishlegs’s hold as dark blood poured down the cliffface.

Finally, Hiccup caught Fishlegs’s eyes, just in time for the hard anger there to crumple and for utter terror to flicker. Fishlegs dropped the body, let it fall ungainly to the ground, and his hands shook violently. “I…” he said, hoarse-voiced.

“You had to,” Hiccup said. “Come on.”

He slung his shield over his shoulder, every movement jolting his right hand and tearing open the wound all over again, blood dripping down his fingers. He grabbed one of the huge metal doors as best he could and hauled on it, every muscle in his body screaming. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth, but he could not even stop himself, just dug in with his prosthetic foot and pulled until the door began, achingly slowly, to shift.

Fishlegs caught hold of the other door, and it moved more easily for him; things always had. As soon as they were far enough apart, Hiccup swung round so that he was pushing with his shoulder instead, like an ox behind a plough, but at least the pain that throbbed through him was _different_ than before.

“Meatlug!” Fishlegs cried. Hope flickered, cool and clear, in Hiccup’s chest, as he abandoned the door and followed Fishlegs into the pen. “Oh, Meatlug, baby girl!”

“Cut away the dragonskin,” said Hiccup. He drew from his belt the long dagger that he had taken from one of the Berserkers. “I’ll see what I can do about these chains.”

He knew chains; he had made them. Not ones for the dragons, so far as he knew at least, but he had helped Gobber to make chains over the years and would have hazarded there were few better placed than a blacksmith to break them. Hiccup scanned the chains, picked out the joins that looked the weakest in the dim light, and pried the dagger into the link and _twisted_.

Metal sprang apart, and he smiled grimly to himself more from relieved triumph than any real happiness. Meatlug bit through the chains on her forelegs in the time that it took Hiccup to release her other back foot, and Fishlegs finished getting the muzzle off her mouth and threw it aside in disgust. The Berserkers had apparently not bothered to remove her saddle, and Hiccup hoped it would be the same for all of the dragons. It would save them time, and probably the respect for and the work that went into the saddles as well.

Hiccup waved from Fishlegs to the saddle. “Go on, get in.”

“Hiccup, the other doors–”

“I’ll handle it,” said Hiccup, tasting the desperation of his words. “Give me the knife. The Berserkers won’t miss the dragons getting free. And Fishlegs,” he added, drawing out the pause until Fishlegs was forced to look him in the eye. “Whatever you have to do? Do it. It’s all right.” His voice softened slightly.

Fishlegs hesitated, then nodded, brows drawing together as his expression hardened. Then he swung himself into Meatlug’s saddle, as Hiccup backed quickly away, and as they slammed through the half-open doors Fishlegs howled defiance and Meatlug roared. There were shouts from the men outside, and Hiccup blinked against the bright flashes of Meatlug’s lava spattering down.

Hiccup dived to the side wall, realising that people would look towards the empty pen, but was not sure if he was fast enough. Someone ran towards the pen, and Hiccup hastily sheathed the Gronckle iron knife and chose the Berserker’s long dagger over his shield. As the first Berserker reached the pen, he struck, fast and first. His first stab slid home, through leather and into the man’s gut, but it was far from a fatal wound and with a roar of fury the man turned.

His axe slashed out, and Hiccup ducked beneath it, twisting so that instead of his exposed arm his back, protected by his shield, was turned towards the man’s right side. It was becoming almost easy to fight, to take the moves that he had learnt from sparring and turn them into killing, his body knowing the shapes already. But there were some things that he had not been taught by humans, and when he saw the exposed backs of the man’s ankles he dropped to one knee, right hand slamming to the ground to support himself even as pain lanced red-hot through him, and struck.

The Berserker dagger was no Gronckle iron, but it cut through the man’s boots and sliced through the tendon beneath all the same. The man cried out again, leg buckling beneath him, but Hiccup saw the forward pitch of his weight and braced himself against the body that slammed against the shield on his back. Twisting, he shrugged the man aside as he stood up, kicked away the fallen axe with his left foot, and paused for just a moment to look down at the man’s contorted, furious face.

“You’re still alive,” said Hiccup simply, not even sure if the man heard. Then he jumped over his legs and ran, dodging the arm that reached out for his feet, and immediately saw in a wave of gratitude that Hookfang, as well, was loose. As he watched, the Nightmare grabbed a Berserker in his teeth and tossed him away into the night, as easily as a human would swat aside a fly. Hiccup could not hear the man’s scream above the tumult.

“Berserkers! Outcasts!” one of the men was shouting. “It’s a trick! An ambush!”

Hiccup was not sure how many were listening to him. He bolted for the next door, was relieved to find it still slightly ajar, and had only started to haul it open when he was struck by a mingled wave of pain and anger and fear, choking and tightening in his throat, pounding in his head until he could barely hold back a scream. He all but fell backwards, pulling the door just far enough to see the shadows of the Hobblegrunt inside, the colours on her skin rippling so intensely that she almost seemed to glow in the dim light.

He could feel the bite of chains on his feet, the suffocating bag over his nose and mouth, throbbing patches of pain where he had been struck. The cave pressed down around them. Hiccup dragged in a breath, and clenched his right hand.

Pain ripped through him. His heart pounded in his chest, and for a moment he could not breathe and what little he could see in the darkness blurred even further. But it was _his_ pain, the tearing in his hand and the scouring in his arm, and he staggered in to cut the bag from over the Hobblegrunt’s mouth barely able to see beyond his own shaking hands.

“I’m trying to help you,” Hiccup muttered. He ducked under her long jaw to cut the other side, then pulled the bag away as she snorted and shook her head, chains clanking around her ankles.

The oppressive pain seemed to fade around him, and he panted for breath as if he were flying with Toothless, as high as only they could go. Something that might have been gratitude brushed against his mind, and he was not even sure whether he was actually grateful that it lessened the pain, or whether the Hobblegrunt was just affecting him all the same. If she was, he would take gratitude over pain, and he swapped the knife for the dagger to break one of the chains as the Hobblegrunt ripped the other from its rock mooring.

She paused, the chain still clenched between her teeth, and looked him over again. Her eyes were black against the shifting colours on her skin.

“Go and help Elsa,” said Hiccup, pointing to the door.

Whether she understood Elsa’s name, or just knew a door when she saw it, the Hobblegrunt swung her huge head towards the night sky and growled, low and threatening. She breathed a great gout of flame, billowing through the foot-wide gap and out into the night sky, and Hiccup shielded his eyes and stepped back as far as he could from the roiling heat of it. The fire streamed and billowed like that of a Monstrous Nightmare, but much hotter, the air almost scalding on his skin and painful in his eyes until he heard the doors slam open and a wave of cool air rolled in as the Hobblegrunt charged out into the fray.

Hiccup blinked, eyes watering from the heat, and squinted out just in time to see the Hobblegrunt breathe a gout of flame over Stormfly. The few Berserkers still trying to hold onto Stormfly’s chains, amid the battle and crossbow bolts still cutting close by them – Stormfly was more protected by her skin than they would be by their armour, and the twins knew it as well – dropped their chains and leapt aside as fire bloomed around them.

But Stormfly, of course, was unaffected by the fire, using one foot to claw the bag from around her mouth before the flames had even faded, then biting through the dragonskin that wrapped around her tail and tearing it off in one swift move. Her tail lashed out, spines flying, and more of the Berserkers fell.

He reached the middle door at the same time that Astrid did, bloody Gronckle iron knife between her teeth to leave her right arm free. “Is Snotlout–” he began, with a wave in the vague direction of Hookfang, but she nodded before he even had to ask.

He had done his own calculations. He knew who was going to be in the last pen, and his knees felt weak at the thought. True enough, as he grabbed hold of the door and started to pull, he heard Toothless’s muffled rumble from inside, and it made it just that little bit easier to fight the pain in his hand just one more time.

“Look out!” Astrid shouted, and Hiccup turned to see a crossbow pointed at them. She grabbed Hiccup by the shoulder and pulled them both downwards; the crossbow bolt clanged against the metal door above them, and Toothless snarled.

“It’s the Berkians!” Savage shouted, and Hiccup could have punched the ground in frustration if that would not have hurt more. He had been hoping the chaos would mask them longer. “Men, attack!”

Well, at least that loud, shouted realisation would be a signal for something else, as well. The crash of sword on sword died down as the Outcasts and Berserkers alike realised that they had been tricked, that there would be riders on the dragons above them and not just the dragons themselves breaking free. But bright light glimmered on the rock face above them, where Hiccup had told Elsa to climb, and all of the dragons swooped upwards as Hiccup and Astrid scrambled through the narrow gap and into the sudden safety of the pen.

Elsa’s ice rained down, hailstones the size of a man’s fist thundering down to crack against shields or helmets or exposed arms. Hiccup saw one Berserker, foolish enough to look up at the onslaught, be struck full in the face with enough force to knock him bodily to the ground. Those Berserkers who had shields hid below them; those who not would be hit.

He only spared a brief moment to watch, however, before turning properly into the darkness of the pen. Toothless murred, the sound reverberating off the walls, and for the first time in too long Hiccup managed a true, joyous smile as he hurried over. In unison, he and Astrid cut the straps of the bag covering Toothless’s nose and mouth, and then Astrid pulled the dagger from his belt to start wrenching open the chains on the dragon’s feet.

Hiccup dropped to his knees beside Toothless, cradling his jaw, only to feel blood on his hands. “Toothless?” he said, the word lost beneath the thunder of hail outside. But Toothless rumbled in response, and pressed his nose to Hiccup’s cheek despite the blood and grime that had to be smeared there as well. Of course, not all of it was Hiccup’s blood; hopefully, not everything on Toothless was the dragon’s, either. “Come on, it’s just you left that we need to get out.”

There were thick leather straps binding Toothless’s wings to his side, and Hiccup forced himself upright and across the aching steps to cut them. The first of the chains snapped, and Astrid hurried to the second as Hiccup pulled the leather away. Toothless’s wings pushed open so fast and hard that Hiccup staggered back, almost fell, and as his prosthetic scraped on the floor he realised that he had _heard_ it, and that the ice outside had stopped falling.

Toothless growled, then drew in his breath, and Hiccup recognised the sound more than well enough. “Astrid, move back!” he called, backing up as fast as he could until he felt rock behind his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes closed and covered them with one arm, and sure enough when Toothless fired it filled the pen with a flash of light and a sound like caged thunder.

Still with faint afterglow in his eyes, Hiccup looked round to see molten rock and metal smeared across the floor, and chains hanging useless from Toothless’s feet. Toothless turned to the door and fired again, and this time Hiccup barely managed to shield his eyes before the doors were sheared from the stone and flung skidding across the ground.

Hiccup opened his mouth to shout, although he was not even sure what words he needed to say first, when with a snarl Toothless bounded straight out into the dark night. What few torches had been outside had been largely extinguished by Elsa’s hail, and it was into darkness that Hiccup followed him, people dim forms in the background.

The white-hot flare of Stormfly’s fire lanced down through the sky again, and men screamed as it seared their flesh or burned through their armour. Hiccup could smell molten steel and burning skin, for a heartbeat was sure that it was his own foot that was roasting, but forced the thoughts aside as he swung his shield back onto his left arm.

Toothless was harder to see even than anything else. Hiccup heard him growl in the darkness, heard it turn muffled with flesh as a man screamed, and felt his heart sink again at the bitter reminder that Toothless had fought before, for years before Hiccup had even shot him down, fought just for the chance to stay alive.

“Toothless!” he shouted, into the night and the sound of swearing men. “Toothless!”

“Fire!” Savage screamed, and Hiccup looked round expecting to see some new source of it, some new flames in the darkness, but instead crossbows twanged, so many that they sounded like a discordant chord in the air.

He heard the bolts clattering against rock, hoped that they had all been spent in vain, but then his eyes caught sight of a pale flicker against the rock, familiar blonde hair in the darkness. The scream that rose in his throat was doing so before the blow even came, as he realised with horror where exactly the bolts had been aimed; a bolt struck home, and Elsa was knocked from the ledge on which she must have been standing.

Hiccup shouted, wordless and desperate, and felt his mind go blank with horror. She fell, too fast, but he still ran towards her more from instinct than real thought only for the Hobblegrunt to appear from the darkness, skin seeming to almost burn red, and snatched her from the air. More crossbows fired, and Hiccup was still watching desperately above him, trying to find his thoughts for what he could do, when he felt a slash of pain across his right shoulder and realised that crossbows could, so easily, be turned.

He was about to throw himself to the floor when one side of his vision was blotted out with black, and Toothless roared with fury so close that it was almost deafening. Purple-white fire flashed as Toothless fired, once, twice, with the sound of shattering rock and screaming. Then he dropped back to all fours again, and half-turned to put the stirrup right in front of Hiccup. It was as clear an order as anything Hiccup might have given, and he went to climb on, but before he could there was a third wave of crossbows, this time accompanied by shouts of rage, and the Hobblegrunt screamed.

Hiccup felt pain rush through him, so weighty that his vision went black and he fell, only catching himself on Toothless’s back. A scream turned to a whine behind his teeth, as he _felt_ the blood running over his scales, the tearing of his wings, as he knew that he had wings more clearly than he even knew his own name.

Men screamed, screamed with voices that had forgotten human words, and for a moment Hiccup could not feel anything more than the shape of a dragon beneath his skin, pain flooding his body and blood pouring, and the sense of _mine protect hatchling mine young_ applied to a dragon that was not a dragon at all, and the thoughts in his head were the wrong shape and tearing at the inside of his skull.

He tried to clench his hand again, but the pain was not enough this time, and Hiccup could feel himself sinking under the weight of the Hobblegrunt’s mind overwhelming his own. Then a rumble ran through him, reverberated through his body, and a warm scaled nose pressed to his cheek, huffing and snuffling and murring so low that it was more a feeling than a sound. Hiccup blinked against the blackness of pain, again, until he saw the glow of green eyes just inches from his own and felt Toothless’s breath on his skin.

“Thank you,” he breathed. He focused on one hand at a time, one foot, climbing into the saddle and clipping his prosthetic into place, even though his arms were shaking and his vision threatening to blur. “Even when I don’t know myself, Toothless… I know you.”

They took off, joining the others in the foggy air. The Hobblegrunt was labouring to stay in the sky, and Hiccup gestured for the others to keep above her; whether they saw, or the dragons understood, he did not know, but they kept high. The twins had not seemed so affected by her before, nor Heather, and he hoped that it would protect them now.

“Fishlegs!” he shouted. He could hear the roughness in his own voice. “I need you and Meatlug to head to the wharves.”

“ _What_?”

They had too many injuries, to dragons as well as to humans, for all of them to be fit to fly back to Berk in the rising winds. But Hiccup did not have the time to explain that. “Just do it! Find us a boat that you and Heather can handle. Go!” he pointed in what he was at least fairly sure was the right direction, and with barely a hesitation more Fishlegs wheeled Meatlug around in the air and took off, vanishing quickly into the dark.

The Hobblegrunt struggled higher, and Barf and Belch swooped in fast below her for a second that was long enough to fill the open area with their gas. A spark, and flame bloomed below them in the darkness, and Hiccup was not sure how much longer he could listen to men scream.

“Snotlout, with me! Astrid, I need you to cover the Hobblegrunt.” He hoped that the dragon was in enough control of her own abilities that the flood of pain would not be quite so bad this time, or at least that he would be able to focus through it. “We need to get Heather and her father, get the twins on dragonback, and get _out_ of here!”

“Best decision you’ve made all night!” Snotlout shouted.

Even Hiccup was not sure whether that was meant to be an insult or not. Not when it was all too accurate.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time that the rest of them had reached the wharves, Fishlegs had managed to raise the sail on the boat, and it was straining against its mooring. Hiccup got Heather and her father onboard, followed by Elsa still clutched in the Hobblegrunt’s short forearms, before stumbling to land himself. He waved down Astrid and put her onto Toothless’s back in his place, all with a minimum of words, knowing that the Berserkers could not be that far behind.

“Lead the others,” he said. “Burn the other ships. Buy us time.”

“Hiccup, Snotlout can’t keep flying,” said Astrid. Hiccup looked at her blankly, without even the energy left to be confused. She stared back as if he had lost his mind. “His eye, Hiccup!”

“We don’t have water to wash it out, even on the ship–” At least, he did not think that they did; he was not sure what was on this ship, some karve that Alvin and his men must have stolen somewhere in the course of the summer.

Astrid shook her head at him, stuck her bloodied fingers in her mouth, and whistled sharply. Hookfang seemed to drop from the sky at her call, lowering his neck so quickly that Snotlout was almost pitched out of the saddle before catching himself on Hookfang’s horns.

“What is it?” Snotlout snapped.

Astrid nodded to the boat. “You’re sailing. Hookfang’s with us.” She caught Hiccup’s eye one more time, the order to help clear in her eyes.

Adjusting his shield on his back one more time, Hiccup hurried forward to offer a hand to Snotlout, but it was smacked aside. For the first time, by the torches by the docks, Hiccup was able to see Snotlout’s face clearly, and as he did so it was like a punch to the gut.

Snotlout’s eye was not just coated in blood. It _was_ the blood, the eye itself bleeding down over his cheek, eyeball ripped open and dark where white should have been. Hiccup tasted hot acid in his throat, and fought not to be sick; bruises and cuts and even broken arms were one thing, but he knew without having to ask how little hope Snotlout had of ever seeing on that side again.

“Come on, Snotlout,” he settled for. “Let’s get on board. Time to go.”

Above them, Astrid was shouting at the twins and whistling at the dragons. Once Snotlout was in the boat, Hiccup jumped in after him, and simply slashed the rope to the anchor rather than even bothering to haul it aboard. Fishlegs had managed to light a torch and attach it to the mast, and he and Heather were hauling on ropes to angle the sail until, with a lurch beneath their feet, it caught the wind and tugged them out to sea.

“How can I help?” said Hiccup, staggering to Fishlegs’s side. It seemed that Fishlegs was not going to sail as his family had so long done, but he had still done so enough as a child to be the best of them with boats.

Fishlegs looked to Hiccup, then shook his head. “Heather and I have got this. Check on Elsa.”

It was almost strange to hear Fishlegs so self-assured, but then again he was one of the least injured, and had always been one of the most at home on the water. Hiccup picked his way along the deck of the boat, stumbling as it hit a wave and turning it to a drop to his knees at Elsa’s side. The Hobblegrunt had curled at the prow of the ship, skin turning dull and greyish and streaked with blood; Elsa was sitting against her, face white. The crossbow bolt that Hiccup had seen strike was still in her shoulder, the point protruding from her shoulderblade while the fletching bobbed with each breath that she took. Her eyes were closed, but fluttered as Hiccup knelt beside her.

“Elsa? Are you with me?”

Elsa opened her eyes, staring at the sky for a moment before managing to fix on Hiccup. He could see a cut on her lower lip, which split afresh as she raised her head and spat out blood on the deck. “Yes,” she croaked.

“Hang on.” He drew the Gronckle iron knife, and carefully cut away the crossbow bolt a couple of inches from her skin. “I can’t remove this, but I might be able to… to help.”

“Don’t touch it too much,” said Elsa. “I don’t know, if I black out…”

Hiccup followed her gaze over his shoulder, to where Heather’s father lay on his side at the stern of the ship. The ice still shone at his throat, glittering erratically as the rough seas rocked them. It was starting to rain again, fat spitting drops that gusted on the wind, and the weather could barely be worse to sail. But they had no choice.

Her ice held while she slept; he knew that much. But he did not want to risk anything by saying it aloud.

“I won’t,” he replied. He cut through the leather armour around the bolt, a two-inch square, then slit through the lacing on her side and on her shoulders. The leather slumped away, revealing her linen shirt beneath soaked with sweat and blood and sticking to her skin; Hiccup swallowed bile again as he saw the unnatural shifting of her ribs as she groaned, a flail chest fighting her with every breath that she took.

He helped her to sit up enough to slide out of the armour altogether. At least the cold would not be a problem for her. There were ice crystals around the wound, and he wondered if the ice had formed inside her, as she had formed it across Heather’s father’s throat. He cut away the bolt behind her shoulder as well, hoping that at least it would let her sit more comfortably beside the Hobblegrunt, then dropped the knife so that he could catch himself on his left hand when the ship lurched again.

Cold hands closed around his right wrist, and he made vague, wordless noises of protest as Elsa cradled his right hand in both of hers. But then a cold touch wrapped around the pulsing-hot wound in his palm, and he could have sobbed as ice crept across either surface of the wound, over both the injury itself and the sting of the salt that he had not even noticed until it was gone.

“Thank you,” Hiccup said.

Elsa nodded, and leant back against the Hobblegrunt once again. Hiccup wished that he had any water, any cloths, _anything_ other than a knife and his own filthy hands, and wished as well that he had anything that he could do. He sat with Elsa a moment longer, until her eyes drifted closed again, then carefully stood up and picked his way back down the length of the boat again. He had to grab at the mast on the way through, and was glad when neither Fishlegs nor Heather said anything.

At the back of the boat, Snotlout was sitting beside Heather’s father, staring fixedly at the blood-streaked wet deck. He had one hand leaning against his helmet, perhaps trying to give his face some shelter against the rain or seaspray.

“Snotlout…” said Hiccup, holding onto the gunwhale as he crouched down.

“Give me something to do,” said Snotlout fiercely.

It caught Hiccup off-guard. He understood, gods he understood, but he did not have anything. He glanced around them, to Heather and Fishlegs still stabilising whatever it was they were doing with ropes, to Elsa still against the Hobblegrunt’s side, to Heather’s father.

“All right,” Hiccup said. “I need you to watch him.” He pointed to Heather’s father, or at least gestured with his iced-marked right hand. “Elsa’s injuries… I’m worried, and I need someone to watch him in case her ice starts to fade. Can you do that for me?”

Perhaps it was still not the right thing to have said. Not when it was Snotlout’s eye, of all injuries, but perhaps Hiccup was lucky or perhaps Snotlout was truly desperate for something to do, because he nodded fiercely and shuffled round to where he could look directly at Heather’s father.

“Like a hawk,” Snotlout muttered.

Hiccup used the heel of his left hand to push hair out of his face, where it was sending bloody water dripping down into his right eye. He did not even know the man’s name.

The boat seemed to settle, at least a little, and Hiccup pushed to his feet and straightened up again. He gritted his teeth until he realised how much worse that was making the pain in them, and forced himself to relax his jaw. The last thing that he could have expected would be for Heather to all but throw herself across the boat and wrap her arms around Fishlegs’s neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

To judge by Fishlegs’s expression, it was not what he had been expecting either.

“Heather?” said Fishlegs. He still had a rope in one hand, but with the other he tried vaguely to pat her arm. “Heather, are you…”

Words seemed to fail him. When Heather looked up, her face was streaked with tears, but she wore a sort of desperate smile. She grabbed Fishlegs by the jaw. “I don’t know how you knew,” she half-said, half-sobbed. “But you knew.”

Fishlegs gave Hiccup a desperate look. He shrugged, then stumbled as the boat fought its way through another wave. Sitting down was looking like a wiser and wiser move, but he was not sure that he would be able to stand again if he sat down now. A dragon roared in the skies above them, but it was so muffled by the rain and his own exhaustion that he was only _mostly_ sure that it was Stormfly.

“It’s my parents’ boat,” said Heather, looking to Hiccup. Some of her hair was sticking to her cheek, where a bruise was starting to form from Dagur’s blow, and her eyes were wide and wild. “It’s our boat, it’s…” she broke down into tears again, slumping against Fishlegs, and the best that Hiccup could do was step in and try to steer her away, to leave Fishlegs free to try to control the bucking boat.

Heather’s strength must have left her; her whole weight came against Hiccup’s shoulder as she started sobbing freely, and he tried to steer her to the foot of the mast where he could sink to the deck with her arms still around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said, desperately, knowing that it could never begin to be enough. Heather’s hand tightened around his right elbow until it hurt. “I’m sorry, Heather, I…”

She said something, but the words were lost to her tears again, and he knew that it did not matter anyway. Whatever he said would not begin to make up for how he had failed her, how badly wrong the night had gone, and in the rocking boat and gusting wind he felt the cold horror of everything begin to finally cut through the heat of pain and anger that had managed to drive him from the moment that Dagur stepped into the light.

His arms tightened around Heather, but she did not seem to notice, and he gave up on trying to find words as the boat continued on its uneven journey.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: Savage and some of the other Outcasts made a deal with Dagur to overthrow and kill Alvin and take control of Outcast forces. In return, Dagur gets them off the island (and gets rid of Alvin, for those who disliked him). Dagur knew that Alvin would not take such a deal... and disliked and distrusted Alvin anyway.
> 
> With the crossbows hitting the Outcasts, Hiccup made Savage think that they had been double-crossed, sparking the infighting. When the riders were spotted, the trick was realised.


	34. Chapter 34

It was dark. The rain was a steady rumble around him, the rock cold and rough against his back, and it smelt, gently, of dragon. Healthy dragon, warm and reptilian, not the sharp bite of sickness. It was even enough to override the blood that clung to him still, the cold air seeping into him and washing away the last of the heat of anger and fright that had driven him.

Hiccup shivered, but it was a sort of relief. The corner of the dragon pen in which he sat was dry, the slightest slope in the floor keeping the rain well away from him, but the cool smell of the rain was still welcome. Against the cold, he was still wearing his leather armour, for all that it was soaked with blood and heavy on his skin. Even now, he knew that stripping down to his shirt would be a foolish thing to do.

“Hiccup?”

Astrid’s voice, outside the pen, sounded far-off. Hiccup wondered faintly whether he should respond, but the cool and the quiet was so much more comfortable, so much more welcome, than everything that had gone before.

“Oh, thank Thor, Hiccup…” Astrid lowered her voice, said something that Hiccup could not make out the words of, then splashed through the water of the arena and padded across the drier inside of the pen. Even after everything, her footsteps were quiet.

A rumble in the darkness followed, and Hiccup’s head snapped up as he recognised the sound. There was the faintest of green gleams, enough to send his heart leaping in his chest, and he was on the verge of getting back to his feet when Toothless rushed across to him. Murring away, Toothless rubbed his head against Hiccup, his chest, his cheek, and even though it made Hiccup’s muscles scream and his chest burn, he threw his arms around Toothless’s head and neck in response. He breathed in the scent of dragon, of Toothless, marked as it was with leather and blood and some healing herbs, the sting of salt in his nostrils and his eyes aching too much for tears.

With a grunt of pain and the sound of shifting leather, Astrid sat down beside him. He could feel the warmth of her in the confined space, as much as he could feel Toothless’s heat.

“I thought that Toothless would know where to find you,” said Astrid, after a moment. “Anna’s going to tell Stoick where you are. That you’re all right.” She paused. “That you’ll be back when you’re ready to be back.”

“Shit.” Hiccup winced. “I should have – I meant–”

Astrid put her hand on his arm. “ _Hiccup_. It’s all right. When I said I’d look… he asked me to tell you that.” Her thumb brushed against his arm, in the gap between the armour. “He said people don’t all react the same. As long as he knows you’re all right.”

Silence stretched out between them, swelling to fill the pen. None of the dragons, not even the ones they had so recently released from the Outcasts’ dungeons, had been willing to join him inside. They had crowded into the other pens instead, or were sleeping in the rain with their wings stretched up like tents.

“I couldn’t face it all,” Hiccup admitted. “I know that… the healers…”

Gothi, of course, but she had not been the only one. Astrid and Toothless had flown ahead on Hiccup’s orders, and Gothi had been waiting on the wharves themselves, with Duskhowl, and Rootshade, and Hallow, and it seemed everyone that they could gather.

He heard Astrid nod in the darkness, the rhythmic shift and the sound of her hair moving. Strange, the patterns that he had never seen before.

“How are they?” he asked, finally.

“Fishlegs, Ruff and Tuff are bruised, scratched,” said Astrid. “Tuff took a major hit to his right side, but nothing’s broken. They put a cast on me;” she shrugged; Hiccup felt her right shoulder move against his left. “After the moment to realign it, it didn’t hurt too much. Hallow sewed up Snotlout. Gobber sewed up Toothless, and did what he could for the Hobblegrunt. He’s… not sure about her. They’re just waiting on you.”

There was an edge to her voice that his brain ached too much to unravel. Almost sad, almost worried, but something else that Hiccup could not quite place. Astrid sighed.

“Please, Hiccup,” she said. “They need to see your hand.”

“What about Heather? Elsa?”

For a moment, Astrid did not reply. Then she shifted again, until her right leg was bent to the same angle as his left, pressing together all the way from hip to calf. He realised distantly that she was not wearing her usual spiked skirt, just a plain one that he could feel as an extra layer between them.

“Heather’s asleep,” said Astrid, and it sounded like a confession. “She couldn’t… she couldn’t calm down. Gothi and Gobber tricked her into drinking poppyblack. I doubt she’ll be happy when she wakes up.”

Poppyblack was usually used for amputations, or injuries so severe that there was nothing that could be done with them at all. Hiccup remembered Heather screaming, but it had been lost behind Anna, in his face, demanding to know what had happened, her grammar and language cracking until she was asking him in Arendellen _what he had done_.

He still didn’t have an answer.

“Elsa,” he repeated, with more force.

Astrid moved again, hunched over a little. It was hard to picture that, somehow, even though he could feel it beside him. The clouds were so thick outside that there was not even moonlight, the pen all but pitch black. He wondered why Astrid had not bought a lantern with her.

“She chose to wait,” Astrid said finally. “With Heather’s father… Gothi is putting his throat back together. But without Elsa’s ice, he’ll die. Elsa chose to wait, rather than risk it.”

He understood, gods help him. Elsa’s ribs were broken and there was a crossbow bolt through her shoulder, but she had survived the time sailing back and was not in immediate danger. Heather’s father was. Hiccup knew that he would have done the same, and when he thought about it rationally he knew that Elsa would do nothing else. But it still felt so wrong to think of her, a bolt through her shoulder, waiting patiently while stitch after stitch was put into Heather’s father.

“Anna says sorry,” Astrid added. “She was panicking. She wanted to say it to your face, but… someone needed to fly back and tell Stoick. And she gets that she was out of line.”

“I didn’t want Anna to go.” It came out barely more than a whisper, and Hiccup knew that if it were not for the dark he would not be able to bring himself to say the words. “This is _why_. If she’d been there, if…”

If she had been there, Anna would be a killer as well. She might have been a year older than them, but she still seemed so sheltered from her life in Arendelle. Hiccup was not sure whether Elsa felt more like an older sister or a younger at times, but Anna most certainly felt like a younger one.

For a while, they sat in silence. Toothless curled himself around so that his head was pressed against Hiccup’s right side, and Hiccup moved his right hand from his leg to his chest. He could feel that it was bleeding again, Elsa’s ice having faded away. Probably as she was concentrating on Heather’s father. It was not bleeding so much now, as long as he kept it still and did not try to flex or shift his fingers, but the last thing he wanted was to get blood on Toothless again.

The rain thrummed, and Toothless breathed, and Hiccup felt as if he could feel his own heartbeat across his whole body. At least it was not racing, as it had done on Outcast Island. He had not been aware of quite how cold he felt until he could feel the contrast of Astrid beside him, sliding her arm around his so that she could clasp their hands together. He was aware, as well, of how grimy his hands were against her smooth, washed-clean skin.

Astrid remained quiet beside him, and he wished that he could tell her how grateful he was for that without it sounding absurd.

“This is where it started,” he said. Astrid’s fingers twitched against his. It had been Meatlug’s pen, once, dark and stinking and nightmarish no matter how much effort he put into scrubbing it clean. The smell of dung and rotting fish had seemed to sink into the stone. Or perhaps it had just been the sense of horror. “The sinkhole… I found Elsa. The cove, I found Toothless. But this is where I found _dragons_.”

He remembered trying to explain it to Elsa, while she frowned politely at his high-speed speech full of words that she did not know.

“This… when it was the arena… this is where I realised how wrong we were. That it wasn’t just _a_ good dragon, or _a_ good wildling. And I just…” his breath escaped him in a rush. “I just wanted to know that we _changed_ something. This whole year.”

“Hiccup,” said Astrid tenderly. “Who’s sitting on your right-hand side?”

As if knowing that he was the subject of discussion, Toothless huffed, nudging his nose against Hiccup’s thigh. Hiccup almost laughed, the sound choking on his lips, then closed his eyes tightly as it threatened to turn to tears instead. It still felt as if the world had gone round in a circle; after centuries, the Berserker Chief controlled a Skrill again, and Arendelle was under the control of a hostile power.

“I just don’t know what I should do,” he said. “I don’t think I even know what I _can_ do right now.”

Astrid stroked his thumb with hers. Even now, having been in the darkness for so long that his eyes should have adjusted, he had to squint to see the faint outline of their hands linked together. He knew that he had seen nights this dark, but it did not much feel like it. As if his thoughts were intruding upon his vision.

“You could come back,” she replied. “Get your hand seen to, before you lose more blood. Let your father and Gobber know that you’re… all right.”

The way that she said it, it was clear that he knew it was not quite true. But it was as close to true as they could get, and even Hiccup knew that it was much better than many of the ways it could have been.

He drew in a deep breath, squeezed her hand, and let his elbow brush against the side of Toothless’s head. “You’re right. I should see my father again.”

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup braced himself for one of his father’s chest-crushing embraces, but it did not come. Instead, Stoick held him as gently as if he were made of glass, as if his bones would break under too much pressure. It was almost worse, the pain in the centre of his chest rather than just around his ribs, but his father still smelt of home and his cloak was still rich and soft beneath Hiccup’s left hand.

“Come on,” said Stoick, gently. “Hallow will see to that hand of yours. Thank you, Astrid,” he added, straightening up from where he had taken a knee, and putting one arm around Hiccup’s shoulders. “You can head home now.”

“Yes, Chief.” Astrid caught Hiccup’s eye for one last moment, and half-smiled; weary though it was, he thought that he saw hope there. He found a smile in return, before letting Stoick lead him on through the rain and the darkness.

Hiccup was not quite sure where he was expecting to be taken, but was still surprised when Stoick led him straight home. He was significantly more surprised when he stepped in to see Snotlout sitting beside the fire, a dressing over his eye and a bandage around his head holding it in place, bandages around his arms besides. A blanket was draped over his shoulders, and he had both hands wrapped around a mug despite not really seeming to pay it much attention.

“Snotlout?” said Hiccup. A hand between his shoulders gently steered him further into the house, and he remembered to step inside fully so that his father and Toothless could actually follow him in.

Snotlout gave him a defiant look, but before he could reply Stoick cleared his throat and pointed out some blankets folded on the table. “Snotlout, why don’t you take those upstairs and make yourself up a bed?”

With some reluctance, Snotlout slipped out of the blanket, stood up stiffly, and grabbed the blankets to trudge upstairs with them. Vaguely, Hiccup wondered where Hookfang was and whether he could expect his bedroom window to be opened for Hookfang’s head, then wondered again with more clarity what Snotlout was actually doing in their house at all, let alone making himself a bed.

“Ah, Hiccup,” said Hallow. He had honestly not even noticed her at the table, rolling up a bandage. “There you are. Come on, let’s see that hand.”

“Uh, can I just…” he turned to face his father, and gestured after Snotlout. The wound to his hand had been there for hours already; the pain was stable, though not improving, and it was not really bleeding much any more. “Dad?”

Stoick sighed. “Snotlout had a fight with his father,” he said, in more of an undertone than Hiccup had ever really learned to expect from him. “He and Astrid both, actually. Spitelout…” Stoick hesitated, placing the tips of his fingers together and visibly, at least to Hiccup, searching for words. “Well, Spitelout blamed you, for what happened to Snotlout’s eye.”

Hiccup still remembered the sight of it, the black hollow and streaming blood. “He’s right to,” he said, cradling his right hand to his chest and starting towards the pair of chairs that he could see pointedly facing each other. He did not get a step before a hand fell on his shoulder.

“No, Hiccup,” said Stoick firmly. “You did not do it, nor was it some failing of yours during the battle. Wounds happen, and you bought Spitelout back a living son and not a dead one. He ought to recognise that. And Astrid might have answered first, but Snotlout agreed with her. And he and his father fought badly for it.”

He had to admit, he was touched. If Snotlout somehow did not blame him for everything that had happened, Hiccup was not sure why, but it both surprised and flattered him. Astrid standing up for him was less of a surprise, though still touching as well.

“Unfortunately I did _not_ manage to end the argument before Astrid threatened to take one of Spitelout’s eyes out for him,” added Stoick. This time there was more of a pained note to his voice. “It was the most I could do to end it at all after that. I originally suggested that he stay with Burplout for the night, but Snotlout said that he would come here instead.”

“It does have the benefit of no crying children,” said Hallow. She nodded to the chair, and Stoick finally released Hiccup’s shoulder to let him cross to it. “Oaklout is… what, ten moons now? Hopefully sleeping through the night, but I wouldn’t bet my sleep on it.”

She set a bowl of hot water on the stool between the two chairs, then nudged them slightly closer and sat down. Hiccup proffered his hand obediently, albeit with a glance to the vague rattling sounds upstairs. “Gobber’s translating for Gothi, I’m guessing,” he said. “Where’s Anna?”

“Waiting on Elsa,” said Stoick. “Although I think that right now that means waiting with Fishlegs.”

“What other injuries have you got?” said Hallow.

Hiccup huffed. “You didn’t get a rundown from Astrid?”

“It was busy, she might have missed things,” said Hallow. She set about undoing the bracer on Hiccup’s right arm. “And I want to know what you remember.”

Too much, far too much. He had not taken off his helmet until he was back in Berk, but could not remember where he had left it; Stoick must have retrieved it, for it now sat beside the fire, still smeared with blood. He knew that his head was fine. “Some bruises, maybe… scraped knees, I don’t know. Cuts to my leg, to here,” he gestured to his chest, the lash of pain from Dagur’s sword, then waved feebly with his bloody-knuckled left hand, “and this.”

Hallow looked over his left hand, gently flattening his fingers. He winced as it cracked the scabs forming on his knuckles. “That’ll need washing,” she said, but released it and turned back to his right hand again. She scooted the chair closer once more, so that she could rest it, palm-down, on her knee.  “But it’s less than this. What made this wound?”

“My own knife,” said Hiccup, grimly. Both Hallow and Stoick looked at him in surprise, as he drew it from its sheath and laid it on the table beside the water. It badly needed cleaning; everything did, it seemed, even Hiccup himself. “Whoever it was didn’t know that I was left-handed.”

Hallow picked up the first of the pile of cloths in her lap, then Hiccup’s hand, and started to clear away the dirt and blood around the wound. Pain throbbed through him again, until he dragged in his breath between his teeth and clenched his left hand, and Hallow stopped before even managing more than wiping the back of his hand clean.

“I can send for the poppyblack,” she said. “We have some left.”

He shook his head. The last thing he needed was for his head to become fuzzy, to risk losing track of his own thoughts. He could feel the dark hollows opening up on either side of him, like a rope bridge stretching out over nothingness. “Just do it. Please.”

With a glance that Hiccup suspected was calculating whether he would change his mind once she got going, Hallow hesitated for just a moment, then returned to her work on his hand. Hiccup closed his eyes, head swimming, and only opened them again when he heard the scrape of chair legs across the floor. He looked up, half-expecting to see Snotlout making a reappearance, but it was just Stoick pulling a chair closer to him.

“I spoke to the others already,” said Stoick. “I have their version of events. But you know I will need to hear yours.”

Hiccup snorted. “Then plan worked right up to the point that we walked into a Berserker trap. Then it was only Elsa’s magic that let us get out at all.”

“But you _did_ get out,” said Stoick.

“Not all of us.”

From the way that Stoick paused, he had clearly heard all about Heather’s mother as well. “I know. I know. But… you have to know, it’s rare that a mission is without losses. Each time I sought Dragon Island, each time I fought the Outcasts…”

“How do you do it?” Hiccup looked up at his father. “How do you come back and face people?”

“That is the weight of being chief,” said Stoick. “And someone has to bear it. Sometimes it helps to know that it is not falling on someone else.”

He was right, in a strange way, Hiccup supposed. The last thing that he could want was for Astrid, for Fishlegs, for Snotlout, to be feeling like this. But he could still see the moment that the sword drove into Heather’s mother’s chest, see the rushing blood, hear Heather’s scream.

“You do what you can,” Stoick continued, “and you save who you can.”

“I killed today,” Hiccup whispered. He could feel, distantly, Hallow using wet clothes to clean the crusted blood and dirt around the wound on the back of his hand. It hurt, like brushes of fire on his skin. But it didn’t _matter_ , somehow. Not compared to what he had done. “I killed… I don’t even know how many men I killed.”

Somewhere in the whirl of swords and axes, he had lost count of the number of times his blade had struck home. Hiccup swallowed.

“I don’t even know if Dagur’s alive or not. I didn’t – I didn’t even stop, to think.”

The Red Death had been a monster, not human, too terrible to seem like a dragon. Since then, he had not raised a weapon to a dragon; the Nadder that Gobber had released, the Whispering Death that Astrid and the dragons had taken down, none of them had been at his hand. And fighting Dagur had been one thing, but he remembered the mindless anger that had swept through him as he dashed Dagur’s head against the stone floor, and it made his legs tremble until his prosthetic seemed to rattle against the floor.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed down with his left leg until the rattling stopped. He had said that a dragon who killed dragons was a monster. And now he was a man who had killed men.

“And what other choice did you have, Hiccup?” said Stoick. “Be killed yourself? It is no crime for you to save your own skin.” He took hold of Hiccup’s left hand, his own hands seeming huge, and wetted another cloth.

Hiccup winced, fighting not to snatch either arm back to his body, as both of his hands started to flare with pain from the touch of the wool and hot water. He wasn’t sure whether it had been this hard to take the injuries themselves, or whether his memories were just starting to dull.

“The gods know you were not the one to break their laws,” Stoick continued, “and so does Berk. I know how tempting it is to blame yourself for what you did, yet think that you did not do it well enough. A sword with two edges.”

Hallow turned over Hiccup’s hand to reach his palm, and Hiccup closed his eyes against another wave of pain as she straightened out his fingers for her to reach the wound there. Hot bile rose in his throat as fire burnt up his arm, but he forced himself to keep breathing deeply, for his head not to spin. “If I was going to do it, I should at least have saved them,” he said.

“You did,” said Stoick. “You took eight souls and six dragons to Outcast Island, and you bought them all back. You _also_ bought back Heather’s father, and if the gods have left us any skill to save him, it lies in Gothi, and in Elsa’s magic.”

“I don’t know if Dagur’s still alive,” Hiccup said again. It was all that his mind could return to, the image of Dagur still on the stone ground, Hiccup’s hand wound tight into his hair. There had been so much blood on the floor that it had been impossible to know whether any of it was Dagur’s. “How can… how can we even plan…”

Stoick hushed him, firmly. “That is a matter for another day, Hiccup. For now, you must concentrate on healing, as must the others.”

Hiccup fell silent again. It was so hard to tell himself that Stoick was right, that all of the riders lived still, that they had survived an ambush that had clearly been meant to kill them. The wind and rain buffeted against the roof, the fire cracked and popped, and the only sound between the three of them were Hiccup’s hitches of breath when a brush of cloth – usually on his right hand – flashed pain through him once again.

“It’s a very clean cut,” said Hallow, finally. Hiccup looked warily at the wound, but cleaned up it really did look like little more than a narrow red slit in his palm. “Sharp. That will make it easier.” The cloth on her lap was bloodied and dirtied, and she gestured for Hiccup to raise his right hand while she folded it over to a clean side again. “And I think you’ve been lucky; it hasn’t severed anything. Given time, and rest, it will heal well.”

“Thank you,” said Stoick.

The words could not come to Hiccup’s lips as he saw Hallow pick up a fine steel needle and the strands of catgut that she would need. “I’ll need to do stitches inside, first,” she said, apology in her tone, “before I can close the skin. Remember, we still have the poppyblack.”

“Just do it,” said Hiccup. He looked round to Toothless, who was lying nearby but got up and moved close enough that he could rest his cheek against Hiccup’s left thigh. “It’s just what needs doing, after all.”

 

 

 

 

 

He did not know how long it took for the three rows of stitches to close the wound, but it felt like an eternity. More than once, he thought that he might black out, and only Toothless’s warm touch or soft rumbling was enough to hold him in place. Even when it was done, Hallow looked at the wound on his chest and said regretfully that it would need stitching as well; Hiccup found himself cold and lying on his back on the table, Stoick’s hands engulfing his as Hallow, with a calm expression, made her way along the length of the wound. At least, he had to admit, it hurt less than the hand.

Finally, bandaged and with his right hand in a stiff leather mitt to protect it, Hiccup was told that the best he could do was sleep. As Hallow cleared up the bloodied cloths and stray ends of catgut, Stoick helped Hiccup into a clean, if too-large, shirt and then kissed his forehead in a flurry of beard.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, so quietly that Hiccup could barely hear it. Hiccup could not bring himself to answer, too focused on getting stiffly to his feet again. Stoick sighed, and rested his hand on Hiccup’s shoulder. “Are you all right to get yourself upstairs? We can see to a full bath for you in the morning. I need to do one more check of the others, and speak to Gobber.”

There was regret in his voice, but Hiccup recognised the duties of the chief. “I can handle it,” he said. “I figured out stairs last autumn, remember?”

Stoick gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Aye, you did. I don’t know if Snotlout will be asleep yet. Go on. I’ll be back soon, if you need to call for me.”

With a nod, Hiccup turned and made his way carefully to the stairs and up, one bare foot and one prosthetic sore against his stump. There was a lantern in his room, and he slowed to look round and catch sight of Snotlout tucked right against the wall, back to the room and still hunched over.

Something told him, though, that the sleep was feigned. “Hookfang’s outside, I’m guessing,” said Hiccup. He crossed to sit on his bed and set about taking off his foot. “How’s he doing?”

Snotlout rolled over onto his back, revealing the bandages over his eye, but looked to be staring up towards the ceiling. “Yeah, he’s waiting out back. Just needs some fish, probably.”

“Good,” said Hiccup.

He put his foot aside and peeled off the bloodstained sock beneath, grimacing. It was hard to tell what was dried blood and what was actual rawness of skin, but he checked the wound carefully and was fairly sure that nothing had torn. The scar had all but faded now, a faint silver star on the end of the stump and nothing more. Everything throbbed, his right hand most of all, and at least the difficulty of getting undressed with only one hand was something of a distraction from the pain of it.

The quiet weighed heavy on him, though, and even when he was down to just the shirt and his underwear he only shuffled back onto the bed and sat beneath the blankets, instead of lying down. “Snotlout,” he said, throat catching. “About your father… I–“

Snotlout cut him off with a huff. “Whatever. We’ll deal with it. And hey, maybe now I can be the cripple of the year. Even if I don’t get the metal leg.”

Of all things, that was not what Hiccup expected. He frowned in Snotlout’s direction, as Toothless ignored his normal sleeping position in favour of settling down right beside Hiccup’s bed. “Metal leg?” he said.

“Hiccup’s so smart,” said Snotlout. “Hiccup’s so brave. He’s got the Night Fury. He’s got the best Stump Day story. He’s got the metal leg.”

All that Hiccup could manage, for a moment, was an inarticulate splutter. “Metal leg?” he repeated. “ _That’s_ what you pick out?”

What rankled, the most, was that the metal thing was the only thing he had any choice over. He had not been able to help the leg; the Red Death seemed so inevitable, now.

Snotlout shuffled around, bunching up the blankets around him, and folded his arms across his chest. “No,” he said. “It’s not the metal leg. It’s _you_ , Hiccup, don’t you get it? You get this metal leg, like no-one else gets, and this Night Fury, like no-one else gets, and you do all these ridiculous things that no-one else does–”

“I have the metal leg because I _made_ it,” Hiccup snapped. Designed would have been more accurate, but he was too angry to correct himself. “I was stuck in bed for half a moon while I heard the village trying to tear itself apart around me!”

“Everyone’s so impressed by how quickly you recover, how well you adapt,” Snotlout was continuing. “How there are men twice your _age_ who can’t handle a fake leg that well.”

Hiccup deflated. There, at least, he knew that Snotlout had a point. “That was kind of a necessity,” he said, the anger leaking from his voice. Snotlout remained huddled and scowling beneath his blankets. “I don’t recommend it.”

“Yeah, well,” said Snotlout. “It’s not exactly a choice for me.”

“It wasn’t for me, either,” Hiccup said. He heard his voice soften, and shifted in his bed to try to find somewhere that he could at least sit comfortably. Lying down was going to be a whole separate issue.

Snotlout shifted, went as if he was going to look towards Hiccup, then turned his face away again. The silence stretched out between them, and Hiccup heard the door close downstairs. Outside, Hookfang grumbled something to himself, the sound muted by the walls.

With a sigh, Hiccup shuffled to a vaguely horizontal position, wincing along the way every time a scrape or a bruise made itself known. He let his left hand dangle off the bed, brushing along Toothless’s cheek, then caught himself and sat up again so that he could lean over and snuff out the lantern. Darkness fell over them, and uneasy silence followed in its wake.

“Snotlout?” said Hiccup, finally.

There was a grunt from the far side of the room.

Hiccup’s fingers trailed over Toothless’s nose. “You’d look cool with an eyepatch.”

All that he received in response was a huff, but he thought that he saw Snotlout’s outline relax, and the silence softened between them. Hiccup finally let his head fall onto the pillow, and heaved a sigh that stung across his chest. It didn’t feel so much like sleep waiting for him as blackness, and for a moment he was not sure that he should sleep at all while Elsa was still at Gothi’s side, while Heather’s father was still only clinging to life. But his body was already sinking into exhaustion, two days with little sleep catching up on him, and Toothless huffed against his hand. Regretfully, his heart heavy in his chest, Hiccup allowed himself to slip down into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Snotlout calls Hiccup out for being the protagonist. A good chunk of what Snotlout says at the end is taken from s01e16 "Defiant One", but obviously it's coming from a slightly different angle from him right now given what has just happened to him.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heady mix of PTSD, apologies, and Hiccstrid. Aftermath of injuries, but much less violence and gore. The rest of these notes do discuss injuries in detail, however.
> 
> With some of the injuries, I'm aware that I'm at the 'unlikely' end of medical realism, but HTTYD tends to scientific anachronisms anyway. Since the cut to Hiccup's hand was very sharp and vertical, running between muscles and most of the tendons, it is expected at this point to heal fairly cleanly. Similarly, the crossbow bolt through Elsa's shoulder has done soft tissue damage that may well result in permanent stiffness and decreased range of movment on that side (physiotherapy isn't exactly a developed science) but which managed to pass between her ribs and miss any major arteries and veins. Her ice closing the wound also helped to prevent further bleeding or infection.
> 
> Heather's father lost a _lot_ of blood, and transfusions are not an available technology, but Elsa's ice managed to keep enough of a coherent bloodstream for him to survive. By rolling back the ice a fraction of an inch at a time, under Gothi's instruction, she was able to keep the ice where Gothi needed it. The injury was largely to the jugular vein, _not_ the carotid artery, which is part of why the blood was darker.

By the time that he awoke, everything hurt even more. He hadn’t realised that was possible. Then again, it was a strangely similar feeling to waking up after facing the Red Death. Hiccup winced, tried to sit up, and winced again, before levering himself upright and rubbing his eyes as he looked around the dim room. Rain drummed on the roof, and Snotlout was either asleep or pretending to be with his back to Hiccup’s bed once again.

With a murmur, Toothless raised his head. “Hey, bud,” said Hiccup softly, reaching out with his right hand then seeing the leather mitt and swapping to his left instead. Toothless nuzzled into Hiccup’s hand and huffed against his skin. “I know. Thank you.”

He dressed carefully, in old clothes that had worn soft with repeated washings, and thought better of putting on his foot when he saw the raw state of his stump. A pair of crutches had been stored under his bed for a while, and he scooped them out, fussing with the right before managing to work out a way to clamp it in place using his elbow and not his hand.

Picking his way down the stairs took enough concentration that he had almost reached the bottom before looking up and seeing his father sitting in his chair, block of ice held to his forehead.

“Morning, son,” said Stoick, voice unusually hushed.

Hiccup took the hint. “Morning, Dad,” he replied, equally quietly. “Are the others back?”

“Gobber’s with the Hobblegrunt,” Stoick said, though to be honest Hiccup had no idea where she was either. “Elsa and Anna got back a little before dawn.”

Immediately, Hiccup looked round to the door of the small bedroom. It was ajar, and just as he could feel himself torn between the desire to give them privacy and the need to know how they were, it drew open and Anna peeked out. Hiccup quickly averted his gaze, not sure whether he was up to facing Anna’s anger again yet, but from the corner of his eye he saw her step out and close the door almost silently behind her. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, barefoot, with her hair starting to turn messy and her face pale.

“Hiccup,” she said tentatively. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

He gave an awkward shrug, or at least as much as one as he could easily manage while on crutches again. “It wasn’t the best night for any of us. How’s Elsa?”

“Asleep, finally.” Anna wrapped her arms around herself and leant against the edge of the table. “She has to sleep on her back, and with her left arm like this,” she held it flat across her chest, as if in a sling. Her voice fell to barely more than a murmur. “It makes her look like a corpse.”

“It’ll be the best way for her to heal up,” said Stoick. At least he, of all of them, seemed able to keep his voice calm and controlled. “Gothi knows what she’s doing, lass.”

Anna just nodded.

“And the man you bought back is still alive,” Stoick added, turning back to Hiccup. “What is his name?”

“I don’t even know.” He could already hear the tiredness creeping back into his voice, and he had barely even reached the lower floor of the house. “I didn’t have time to even ask Heather. Is she–”

“Not awake yet. But now her father is stable, there’s no reason for them to use more poppyblack. I’ve asked Duskhowl to stay with her, she’s good with more… delicate conversations.”

Stable. That was a good word. At least, it was a good word for a man whose throat had been cut open, whose blood had poured like a black waterfall. The images rushed to the front of Hiccup’s mind, and he forced them back with a swallow that clenched around his throat. His left hand tightened on his crutch.

“Come on,” said Stoick. “Sit down, and at least get some milk into you even if you aren’t ready for breakfast yet. Then we’ll look at getting you into the bath.”

Hiccup glanced over at Anna; she was wearing that same distracted, desperate look he had seen on top of the North Mountain, when their hopes of bringing Elsa home had seemed so dashed. Not knowing what to do. He hoped that watching over Elsa would fill at least some of that gap.

But that did not stop there from being logistical problems. Hiccup slid onto the first end of a bench that he could reach, intending to tuck his right leg beneath him until his thigh muscle made it clear that was not going to be an option. He settled for feeling too short for the table again, as usual, and rubbed his forehead. “We can probably fit the bath into the back room,” he said. “And I’ll get Toothless to stay in here… it was him doing the splashing last time, not me…”

“It’s fine,” Anna said quickly. Hiccup raised his eyebrows at her, but she did not seem to notice. “I’ll just stay in with Elsa. You can give us a shout when you’re done. And when Snotlout’s done, I guess,” she added, with a glance at Stoick. Well, at least it seemed they already knew about that. “Maybe nap, maybe just… keep watch.”

Before Hiccup could think of a response, Stoick nodded, which Hiccup was more than happy to take as a done deal. “We’ll see if Snotlout will be here that long,” he said. “Brynnhild has had words with Spitelout.”

There was only a slight emphasis on _words_ , but it was enough. Hiccup was not sure how he was even supposed to feel about things, and simply nodded instead.

“Come on, then,” said Stoick. “Let’s get something into you, and then worry about anything else after that. One step at a time.”

 

 

 

 

 

Though he was not able to eat much, Hiccup’s empty stomach did at least let him manage a few mouthfuls of porridge before feeling overfull, and Anna volunteered to help Stoick fetch water for the bath itself so long as Hiccup kept an eye on Elsa in her absence. He agreed, and took the chair in their small room with only a candle at Elsa’s bedside for light, while Toothless sat in the doorway and watched with his flaps twitching.

Anna had a point. Elsa’s left arm and shoulder were bandaged and placed carefully on her chest, and between her pale skin and shallow breathing she did look halfway to being a corpse. The worst of the blood had been cleaned from her face, and he would guess from anywhere near her other injuries as well, but it still darkened the roots of her hair and was smudged red-brown on the pillow.

In some ways, it was a relief that she was not yet awake. Hiccup knew that he did not yet have the words to thank her for what she had done.

He waited with her, counting her quiet breaths, until Anna negotiated her way around Toothless to say that they had something deep enough to pass for a bath. Hiccup rose carefully to his foot, waved for Toothless to back up, and was completely unprepared for Anna to grab him and hug him fiercely.

His first thought was that it _hurt_ , because she didn’t know about the slice to his chest and it was like someone had wrapped wire around his chest. A strangled grunt escaped him. But his second thought was just clear enough to be grateful, and to lean one crutch on the wall so that he could pat her on the back in return.

“Thank you for bringing her back,” Anna whispered in Arendellen, right in his ear.

His tongue felt too thick in his mouth to explain yet that it had been _her_ who brought _them_ back. He nodded, grabbed his crutch again as he was released, and pretended not to see the tears in Anna’s eyes again as they swapped rooms, and she returned to her vigil.

Hot water sounded good, until he trailed his fingers through it and realised that it felt too much like blood. He took too long getting a change of clothes and putting towels by the fire, letting it cool down to barely warm, and even if it spread goosebumps across his arms it was easier. Stoick did not say much, sitting at the table with his hands busy at something, and it was not until Hiccup looked more closely that he realised his father was carefully, and methodically, cleaning the weapons and armour that had been bought back.  Hiccup was struck by the absurd thought that he was glad neither he nor Elsa had been wearing chainmail, considering how hard to clean it was, until he shook the thought away and dumped more water over his head. It came away clear, no longer streaked with blood, and even if he was not sure that he was clean, he was quite sure that he was clean enough.

By the time that he had hauled himself out of the water, dried off and dressed again, he felt clear-headed, almost good. The guilt in his gut grew worse at the feeling. There was still too much to do, and he wanted as much of it as possible to be done without the assistance of his friends.

Toothless, at least, seemed to appreciate both fish and water, and allowed Hiccup to check him over by the firelight. The rain outside was sounding less severe, but Hiccup would still take the opportunity to be indoors, with a dragon small enough to spread one wing at a time inside the house. There were a few scrapes and scratches, some scales torn away in patches, but everything was already looking clean and pink. With a sigh, Hiccup bent to cradle his forehead against Toothless’s, feeling something like peace when the two of them touched.

It wasn’t a case of whether he could do this. He had to.

He sat up at the sound of boots on the stairs, and looked round to see Snotlout scowling, moving stiffly, but at least up. “Morning,” said Hiccup, earning himself a grunt in return. “There’s food. And I can help get fresh bathwater–”

“Not with that leg and hand, you can’t,” said Stoick firmly. “I’ll worry about that.” He stood up as well. Snotlout paused at the foot of the stairs, fiddling with one of the bandages on his arm, and his scowl seemed shaky around the edges as he looked about the room. There was bruising across his forehead, and faint beneath his right eye, as well. “Come on, let’s get some food into you first, or at least milk.”

Hiccup sat back and remained quiet as he watched his father go through much of the same processes with Snotlout as he had done with Hiccup. It had seemed more distant at the time, but seeing it play out again only made him appreciate it more. Once Snotlout had a bowl in front of him – and a spoon in his hand, after grabbing it, missing, and having to inch his fingers across the wood to reach it – Stoick grabbed the buckets and made for the door, and Hiccup hurriedly got up as well.

“Hiccup…” said Stoick, with a sigh.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “I won’t get in the way of carrying water.”

“Grab a cloak,” Stoick said, as if Hiccup had actually been considering going out in the rain in just a wool shirt. “And be careful on the mud.”

Even after half a year and more mostly off crutches, Hiccup was fairly sure that he remembered how to handle Berk’s usual weather, but he held his tongue. He knew that his father meant well. Instead he nodded, grabbed what looked like the driest cloak that he had, and a spare boot which pinched a little about the toes but was still waterproof.

The rain was at their back as they made their way towards the well, but still gusty enough that it seemed to whip immediately beneath Hiccup’s cloak. He sighed, and glanced over at Toothless who had partially flared his wings and seemed to be enjoying the shower. “All right, Dad,” he said, hoping to make himself heard over the rain. “I need to talk about Heather.”

Stoick set the buckets beside the well, and sent the main bucket down. “Which part?” he said.

The fact that she had betrayed them, after everything that Hiccup had wanted to believe. The fact that she had come with them all the same, fought beside them. The fact that her mother was dead and her father lingered in the doorway of life and death as well. Hiccup pressed his lips together for a moment, and sighed. “Well, mostly what we can do with her now. Her father still needs treatment, she’ll need somewhere to stay. There are still houses from last autumn – would I have your permission to get one of them fit to be lived in again?”

With one winter, there might be a few leaks, a few tiles that needed replacing, but the houses would mostly be in good condition. It should be a simple job, a matter of a day or two, to get one fixed up again; there would probably be at least one that Heather could immediately use as a place to sleep, at least, so long as there were some well-placed buckets to be found. Hiccup knew he was in no state to do it himself, but he could promise someone work at the forge in return, or even work with Toothless once they were both in a better state.

Stoick winched the bucket back up again, eyes set and thoughts almost visible as they flickered through his eyes. “Aye,” he said finally. “For now. We do need to discuss what she did, Hiccup – she stole from us, and she did it to aid the Outcasts and Berserkers.”

“Not the Berserkers, she didn’t know about them,” said Hiccup. For all that he had abruptly come to appreciate Heather’s ability to lie, he was quite sure there were some things that could not be faked. “And she did it all under duress.”

Stoick filled their own buckets, and sent the well bucket down again. “They will have to be something done, all the same. But as chief, I should be able to take it under my own concern. We don’t have Mildew to stir trouble or accuse me of being tied too closely to it.”

Unable to help himself, Hiccup snorted derisively. The idea of his father being _too close_ was absurd, because it would be impossible for Stoick to be closer. It was not the loss of their Book of Dragons that stung the most, he knew that, even if Hiccup and the other riders had not been able to bring it back. It had been the assault on Berk itself, on their freshest fighters and their only dragon riders, on everything that Berk needed the most. He would wager there were none who felt it more than Stoick, none that it had hurt more. None _closer_. But as chief, that was Stoick’s right and responsibility both.

“I’ll do what I can, Hiccup,” said Stoick, in his usual meaningful tone. “Please, do not try to ask more of me.”

Throat tightening, Hiccup nodded, and averted his eyes again. He might have been the one facing the blades last night, but he knew that Stoick had been facing his own battles as well. Battles that could only have become more painful when Hiccup and the others did return in their wrecked state.

“I know, Dad,” he said. “So will I.”

 

 

 

 

 

He checked in on the other riders one by one. Fishlegs looked haunted, but was not too badly hurt behind a few scrapes and bruises, and as long as he had Skyfire or Silversnap in his arms he seemed calmer; Meatlug was unharmed. The twins seemed restless, interrupting each other and finishing each other’s sentences more often than usual, but when Tuffnut started trying to show Hiccup how cool the shape of the bruises on his hip were, Hiccup figured that they would do well enough. Even Tuffnut Sr seemed less intimidating now, as he watched Hiccup with an almost thoughtful expression. Hiccup would take uncertain over derisive any day. Barf and Belch were enjoying more fish than Hiccup thought he had ever seen in one place, and although they had been hit in the chest by a few crossbow bolts their thick chest muscles and sturdy ribs had protected them. The explanation came mostly from Ruffnut, pride swelling in her voice.

With Snotlout still at his house, Hiccup knew that only left Astrid, and to himself at least he would admit that he had deliberately left her until last. Even if it meant turning up with mud on his boot and his clothes pretty much soaked through, it meant he would not have the nagging thoughts in the back of his mind that he should be moving on. She had gone through more than just the one night of fighting, and he knew that he owed her more than most.

It was Carr who opened the door, just in time to get a gust of wind and splatter of rain to the face, and he gestured for Hiccup and Toothless both to enter. Hiccup was hardly about to argue, and put a hand on Toothless’s head to discourage him from shaking water everywhere. “Sorry,” he said, trying not to drip everywhere. “I just wanted to check that Astrid is all right.”

“As she can be,” said Carr. He opened his mouth to continue, but the door to the back room opened and Astrid appeared, hair loose and damp, bruises scattered along her arms but moving less woodenly than anyone else Hiccup had seen today.

“Sorry,” said Hiccup quickly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Astrid shrugged. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said. “You’re up,” she added, nodding to the crutches.

“Yeah, for a day or two, probably.” Awkward as the crutches might be, especially with his hand, it was better than being stuck in bed. He did not want to experience that again. “Elsa didn’t get to sleep until nearly dawn. No idea whether Anna did.”

Leaning against her doorframe, Astrid nodded. She was wearing a red-brown shirt that was far too large for her, loosely belted around her waist, with her spiked skirt, leggings and bare feet. Even her feet themselves were mottled with bruises. By the light of day it was a lot easier to see the sling across her chest, holding her left arm in place.

“Thank you. For Snotlout,” he added, as Astrid’s look became one of vague confusion, although he knew that he had whole waves of things to thank her for. Starting with Snotlout was easiest. “My father told me what you said.”

“Spitelout’s had that coming a long time,” said Astrid. Hiccup was aware that Carr was studiously keeping a straight face; the rift between the Jorgenson and Hofferson family went back to Carr and Spitelout’s parents, but had hardly improved in their generation. Hiccup suspected, though, he could not say for sure, that Spitelout had spoken out when it came to Finn Hofferson, and it had only soured things further.

“All the same,” Hiccup said.

Astrid shrugged again, then winced and adjusted her sling. “I’m more surprised that Snotlout did it as well.”

“Well, yeah, you and me both on that one,” Hiccup admitted. “But he ended up at my house last night for it, so…”

“How many are you fitting in there now?” she raised her eyebrows.

“Well, I’m just glad Hookfang didn’t join us,” he replied dryly. It finally earnt him a faint smile.

Carr coughed, and Hiccup caught himself just as he was smiling in reply. “I’ve got some of those furs to be shaping,” he said to Astrid, with a nod upstairs. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Hiccup was not sure whether he should reply, and held his tongue while Astrid nodded. As her father made his way back upstairs again, Astrid sat down beside the fire, and waved for Hiccup to come and join her.

“You sure you want me dripping all the way over there?” said Hiccup.

Astrid looked at him more pointedly, and he took off his cloak, hung it by the door, and did his best to wring what water he could out of his clothes before crossing to sit in the chair opposite her. It was still a relief to sit down and put his crutches aside for a moment, resting his aching right hand in his lap. Toothless lay down along the far side of the fire, putting his head on his paws to watch them.

“I’ve checked in on the others,” he said. “They all seem to be… holding up, at least. I wanted to check on you as well.” His eyes scanned Astrid’s face, but for a moment she did not meet his gaze, tucking her hair back. He caught the faint tremble of her hand. “I know I saw you last night, that you came to get me. But it doesn’t always all hit at once.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not like the others, Hiccup. I was intending to be a warrior. I knew what it meant. That this,” she waved to her left arm, “is the least of it.” Finally, Astrid met his eyes, but despite her faint frown her gaze was a lot clearer than he expected. “I knew that I might not come back. And something tells me you’re less comfortable with that than I am.”

For a moment, it was as if he forgot to breathe. Hiccup had to think to drag in a breath, and his throat still tightened at the calm way that Astrid delivered the words to him. Her hand, on her knee, was steady again.

“You’re right,” he admitted finally, the words coming out strangled. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

“It’s a risk we take, Hiccup. I’m not saying that I didn’t _plan_ to come back. But that knowledge – that’s what makes me fight how I do. What makes me train. But I understood the risks when we flew out there.”

There might have been a time when Hiccup would have asked bitterly whether she was implying that he had not, but he knew better, now. She was right. Though he could not speak for the others, it had struck time after time that he had not known what he was going into. Instead, Hiccup nodded.

“I know.” For a moment, he hesitated, then reached over and put his hand over hers. It did not feel so jarring this time, as if they were made of the same substance and not different creatures altogether. “But I’m still not all right with it, Astrid. If something had happened to you…”

The words wouldn’t come. Astrid squeezed his hand, and Hiccup took a deep breath.

“I got hung up on my own pride. And I’m sorry for that. Because a day with you is worth more than a lifetime of my pride could be.”

The words came out soft and intent, and when he looked into Astrid’s eyes again he saw that they were shining. There was dried blood in her hair at her temple, shadows beneath her eyes, bruises on her cheek and on her lower lip. And she was still, and had always been, the most beautiful person that Hiccup had ever seen. He had admired her since they were children, and she had been bold and strong and smart and everything that he should have been but could not bring himself to be. How she looked at him now was the consequence of that life, of her choices and her drive, and it scared him to death how many times she had almost been killed in just the last few days. And it was a whole new reason to admire her when she was at peace with her choices, and he still struggled with his.

Astrid shifted their hands to twine her fingers through his; two good hands between them, and the thought was absurd. She leant in to him, and Hiccup closed his eyes and tilted his forehead to hers, only to be caught entirely off-guard when she kissed the corner of his lips. He caught in his breath, and almost jerked back out of surprise alone but caught himself as Astrid paused with her lips so close to his that he could feel the faintest touches of them as he shook. Then he kissed her back, just once, firm and simple and acknowledging the kiss that she had given to him.

It had only been days, without being able to talk to her, to see her smile, to ask her some question to verify the wild thoughts that tumbled through his head. But it had felt so _wrong_ , and worse, he was sure that he had made more mistakes because of it. At least she had been there when they had made their plans, their tactics; he felt sure that it would have been worse without her sensible input.

She lingered for a moment, resting her forehead against his, and if he had been able to find words he might have been tempted to beg her to stay there forever. But then Astrid drew back, and Hiccup sat upright again.

“Sit on the bench with me,” she said, quietly, and without a pause Hiccup shifted to do so. Their shoulders bumped together again, not so closely as they had the evening before, and the only thing that he could regret was that he could not see her face so clearly from here.

“You were right about Heather,” said Hiccup. So small a thing, to feel like the root of so much. “I shouldn’t have trusted her the way that I did.”

He remembered Heather’s incredulous expression when he had suggested that she stay back from the village meeting. Probably disbelief that he had offered her the very chance to escape that she needed.

“No,” Astrid said, “you shouldn’t have. But… you did it for the right reasons.”

He grimaced. “There are right reasons to be wrong?”

“You wanted to believe in people.” Astrid nudged her knee against his. “You wanted to believe that we were better than the people who came before us. The generations who killed dragons. Even Alvin and his treachery.” His tongue seemed to catch against his teeth as she paused, and sighed, hand tightening on his until it was almost uncomfortable. “You might think too much of people, but… part of me envies you for that.”

“It makes me too easy to fool,” he said. “You were right. Heather was a danger to Berk.”

“But you were right as well,” she replied. “What you saw in Heather, with the dragons… that was real.”

He went to lean closer to her, and got spikes in his hip for his trouble. Wincing, Hiccup settled for tucking Astrid’s hand onto his lap instead. “Maybe we should both try listening to each other. Find somewhere in-between.”

“That sounds good.” Astrid leant her head on Hiccup’s shoulder, but he hissed with discomfort again as the spikes on her skirt dragged down the bruises on his thigh. She pulled back, looked at him quizzically, then rolled her eyes and pulled her hand out of his.

“Sorry–”

Astrid stood up, reaching round to the back of her skirt, and the next thing that Hiccup knew her skirt was slipping down to the ground and Astrid was sitting down again, closer than before. His face burned, but he slipped his left arm around Astrid’s shoulders, relief weighing him down.

It did not escape his attention that they were still in the front room of her house, though. Hiccup glanced at the ceiling. “Uh, Astrid, are you sure you should–”

“I’m still as dressed as you are,” she replied, not all that sharply. She did have a point; his tunic was not all that much longer than her shirt, and she was not the one who was still half-damp from the rain. But it still felt very strange to have her hip pressed all the way against his, her side against his aching ribs and stinging chest. Reaching across, Astrid took a gentle hold of his right forearm with her good right hand.

He relented, and rested his cheek against the side of her head. She still smelt like herbs and blood and injury, but he knew that it was Astrid, and that was enough. The warmth of the fire slowly soaked into his skin, helping the pain that still throbbed through him from unexpected angles.

“I don’t know what to do now,” he admitted. “I’ve talked to my Dad about finding somewhere for Heather to stay, and Gobber’s treating the Hobblegrunt. But it’s going to be moons until any of us are fit to fight again. And until then, Dagur is unchecked.”

“Even if he’s got one Skrill, he doesn’t have a riding unit, Hiccup,” said Astrid. “Not like we do. He won’t be able to launch the sort of attacks that we could.”

The sort of attacks that they _had_ launched. Hiccup swallowed, feeling a chill at the thought of Dagur being able to attack with anything like the ferocity that his own people had done just the previous day. Six dragons had been enough to defeat an island – a small one, to be sure, but an island all the same. If they had wanted to kill the Outcasts, it would have been easy; pour down Hookfang’s fire, or Barf and Belch’s smoke to fill the halls, and they could have slaughtered them in minutes.

He barely trusted himself with that sort of power. He _knew_ he could not trust Dagur with it.

“Maybe not. But the fear of the Skrill might be as bad as the Skrill itself. The archipelago remembers the Berserker Empire.”

Only this time, they didn’t have Arendelle, didn’t have Queen Joan. Arendelle’s army now was nothing to what it had been in those days, and Hiccup was sure the Silver Priests would not work with Berk if they knew about their dragons, let alone about Anna.

“It’s only one Skrill,” said Astrid.

That, he could agree to. Even if it were female, even if it were to lay eggs, it would be years before they would be of a size to be used to attack as well. More worrying was the thought that a Skrill could remained trapped in ice for all these decades, and still respond to its training afterwards.

“Besides,” she added, with a gentle squeeze of Hiccup’s wrist that drew him back to her. “Getting the dragons fixed up, talking to us? Dealing with Heather? That sounds like you’ve got an idea what to do next.”

“After next, then.”

With a sigh, Astrid twisted, releasing his hand and turning. Hiccup froze, not quite sure what to do with himself and whether she was growing annoyed with him again, raising his hands into the air. Astrid turned in place on the bench, swinging one leg over and hooking the other over Hiccup’s knee so that she was pressed right against his hip, but facing him. There was no annoyance in her expression, though, just a weariness, and she reached up to cup his cheek with her right hand. “Hiccup. Just worry about ‘next’ for now.”

“Then what next?” he said softly.

Astrid drew him in and kissed his lips again. He could feel a scab on her lower lip where it must have been split or cut, and as she tilted her head and deepened the kiss there was a faint trace of blood to it. Resting his hand on her waist, he kissed her back, feeling tremulous and aching beneath his skin. Astrid’s hand slid down to his neck, then she wrapped her arm around his shoulders altogether with a shuddering breath. Her thigh tensed against his, and he reached with his right hand as if to catch her leg, not thinking about the leather mitt until he actually caught hold of her knee. Pain pulsed up his arm, but it was distant and not all that bad, and the last days had been filled with a lot of pain and not at all much of Astrid.

He pressed his hand against her back, feeling the warmth of her through her thin shirt, still wary of hitting any bruises. He could feel the shift of her breath beneath his hand and against his chest, her breasts pressed hard enough against his chest that it stung where he had been cut. But it didn’t matter, not when he and Astrid were back in each other’s arms, her hand holding her firmly to him and her mouth hot against his. She kissed him as if she had feared she would never be able to again, and he wondered if that was the case, if she too had thought they had found a gap between them too wide to bridge.

She sighed against his cheek, and he did not mean to make a sound but a sort of choked whimper escaped him. Astrid drew back, alarm spreading on her face, but he slid his hand up to her ribs and reached in to kiss her again before the moment cracked in the air between them. With a gasp, Astrid tightened her arm across his shoulders again, and her breath hitched in his ear as he kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her jaw, her mouth again.

Her hand slid into his hair again, and he had not realised how much he missed that as well. Her tongue traced his lips, and Hiccup let his hand trace slowly down her back to rest on her hip again.

There was a noise from above them, a creak, and they sprang apart and looked upwards guiltily. Hiccup held his breath, but no further sounds followed; he caught Astrid’s eye, and the next thing that he knew they were both struggling not to laugh, coughing and choking and making all sorts of undignified sounds along the way. It hurt horribly across his ribs, but it felt too good to laugh, and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth until he could trust himself again.

Astrid uncurled her legs from his, wincing slightly and adjusting her sling again, and scooted back along the bench while still facing him. Hiccup twisted in his seat, tucking his left leg up.

“That still doesn’t really answer ‘what next’,” he pointed out.

Astrid brushed her hair back out of her eyes, with a faint, sad smile. “No, it was more an attempt to distract you,” she said. Hiccup felt his cheeks grow hot. “But Hiccup… I think you’ve got more of a handle on ‘what next’ than you realise. You’re just trying to think five steps ahead, when maybe two or three would be better for now.”

He leant his elbow on the table. “Like you putting your skirt back on before your father comes down and accuses me of something which you decided to do?”

“I’d ask how you’d be supposed to take it off with one hand, but neither of us is managing more than that,” she replied, but did swing both legs onto the same side of the bench and hook her skirt closer with one foot. “Does your father seriously–”

“I have no idea what goes on in my father’s head sometimes, and it might be best to keep it that way,” said Hiccup. Astrid snorted, and he averted his eyes as she grabbed her skirt and stood up for a moment to pull it on. “It’s weirdly… southern, I guess. But I’d still rather your parents didn’t…” he waved to the floor where her skirt had been, even if it was no longer there.

With a huff, Astrid sat back down again, still hitching her skirt back into place. “Yeah. Probably an uncomfortable conversation.”

He raised his eyes to her face again, though he couldn’t help tracing the purplish mottle of bruising on her cheek. At least bruises would fade, he told himself, pressing his lips together more tightly as she adjusted the sling across her chest.

“How’s your arm doing?”

“Annoying. Pain’s not too bad.” Astrid shifted where the knot sat against the side of her neck; there was a red mark from the fabric, but at least no bruising there. “Duskhowl said it was a clean break. Couple of moons, it should be fine. Bracers helped.”

“All right,” he said, “your tendency to wear more armour than the rest of us combined is indeed paying off.” It earned him a smile.

“And your hand?”

He shrugged, giving it a vague wave. “Uncomfortable. Worse than my leg, to be honest, but I can handle it. Managed to go between the bones. I think Snotlout and Elsa took the worst of… everything.”

“Elsa’s a survivor,” said Astrid. “And the ice was helping, right?”

Of course she would have spotted that. Hiccup nodded, and Astrid reached back across to put her hand on his knee. It was only a comforting touch this time, somehow all the more reassuring for being on his left side. “Yeah,” he said. “And I did tell Snotlout he’d look cool with an eyepatch.”

She snorted. “Just get Elsa or Anna to tell him the same. Or Heather, if you can manage it. He’ll definitely take that to heart.”

“Well, that’s certainly an idea.”

 

 

 

 

 

The weather grew worse, but Hiccup knew that there was only so long he could spend sitting and talking to Astrid before he would have to move on. When Runa came home, peeling off her waterproof cloak to look at him in surprise, he realised that he had been there long enough for the fire to start burning down, his clothes to dry out completely, and Toothless to be snoring on the far side of the fire.

“Hiccup,” she said. “I didn’t realise you’d be about. I was about to start cooking, if–”

“No, I, I should go,” he said, grabbing for his crutches. He knocked one to the floor, and Toothless’s head snapped up with a snort. It was Astrid who got her hand to the crutch first, passing it back to him as he pushed upright. Gods, even his stomach muscles ached. “I’ve just been checking up on people today.”

Runa nodded. There was mud streaked on her jaw and splattered up to her thighs. “Gothi got through some of her stores last night,” she said. “Only a few days a year I can replace them.”

Hiccup had no idea what plants bloomed at what time of year, but he hoped that Gothi had not come entirely to the end of her poppyblack. Without the dragon-related incidents, there had been far fewer injuries last year that should have required it, but there were always accidents. He was troubled, as well, at the thought of having to have any sort of fight again without a store of it to return to.

“Berk is grateful for it,” he said, honestly. “But speaking of Gothi, do you know if she’s back on her spire?”

“No. They took that man to Duskhowl’s, last night. They’re still there. Not sure how long they’ll have to be.”

Until he woke up, or lost his battle, Hiccup supposed. But he just nodded. At least it told him where he needed to go next. “I need to head over.” It might be a little difficult to communicate, depending on who was there, but Duskhowl had at least the basics of Gothi’s writing. Good enough for them to work together on healing matters, at least.

Runa unhooked a bulging satchel from her shoulder and gently set it on the floor. She took off her high boots, and started undoing the thin leather wraps she had around her legs to keep them at least moderately dry. “Well, I’d suggest waiting for a gap in the weather, but the clouds look solid. You’d be waiting a while.

“Thank you,” he blurted. Runa paused, tilting her head at him. “For letting me dry off for a while, at least.”

He meant it for so much more. For being there for Astrid when she had needed it so badly, for being part of the Berk system which meant that Gothi had the tools and the help she needed to put people back together, for a life that let Astrid cope so much better than the rest of them with what had come to pass overnight.

“There’s always a fire,” Runa said.

Astrid helped him with his cloak as he struggled to clasp it with one working hand, and snuck a kiss to his cheek when her mother’s back was turned. Although he was sure that his cheeks were blazing, Hiccup managed to calmly take his leave, and tromp his way through the worsening rain to Duskhowl’s house. The mud was getting so bad that he thought once or twice he was going to lose his boot, and he almost fell over twice before staggering into the lee of the wind, cursing rain and whatever fools had tried to settle Berk in the first place, not caring one whit that they were his ancestors.

He banged on the door, possibly a little harder than he intended in the pounding rain, and Duskhowl opened it a crack to peer out at him before pulling it open with a speed that managed to indicate very clearly that she did not want it open for longer than it had to be. Hiccup hurried in, Toothless following before Duskhowl would even have been able to protest, although there was considerably less room in her house.

The metallic smell of blood still hung in the air, despite the herbs that he could tell had been burned to cover up the worst of it. Hiccup caught sight of Gothi looking down from the top of the stairs, and gave her a wave that was acknowledged with a nod before she vanished from sight again.

“Bud, beams,” said Hiccup, with a gesture upwards. Toothless snorted, looked up, and paused for such a long moment that Hiccup was worried he was not going to jump at all. Then with a curt wiggle of his hips, he bounded up, leapt across to a beam he apparently preferred the look of, and settled down. “Sorry,” he added, to Duskhowl. “I probably should have checked before bringing him, but…”

“Can’t remember the last time I saw one of you without the other,” she said, as if it finished his sentence. In a way, he supposed it did.

He tried not to look too sheepish. “I came to see how things are going. Not sure whether my father has already been round or not.”

“Spoke to him this morning,” said Duskhowl. “Since then–”

The door to the downstairs bedroom opened, and Heather appeared, chalk-white and with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She leant on the doorframe, but her gaze was level as she caught Hiccup’s eyes.

“I woke up,” said Heather. Her voice was gravelly, a long way from the way that he had once heard her sing. Her right cheek was all but covered in a bruise, a cut along her jawbone. She walked stiffly into the room, and sat down in a chair by the fire that looked far too big for her. Hiccup glanced at Duskhowl, who was wearing a soft, sad expression, then picked his way across while trying not to leave streaks of mud from his crutches on the wooden floor.

“Glad to see it,” Hiccup replied. There was a stool nearby that would do; he hooked it over with a crutch and lowered himself down. “How’s your head?”

“Pounding.”

“I spent most of last winter like that. It passes.”

She didn’t smile, though he supposed that was only to be expected. Her eyes were bloodshot and red, and her lips had the swollen, puffy look of tears. As he waited, Heather rubbed her throat, revealing knuckles as bloody as his.

“What’s your father’s name?” he said softly.

“Eirik.”

At least now, they could know. He folded it away into his thoughts, and just nodded.

“I’m sorry,” said Heather.

Hiccup frowned. “Why?” She had fought with them, nearly been killed with them, had probably lost more than any of the rest. “Heather, I understand why you did what you did. You don’t have to apologise to me for that.”

To his father, it might be a different matter. But for all the anger he had felt in the past days, the past moon, he did not want an apology from her now.

She shook her head. “For blaming you. I did, and…”

“Don’t worry. Plenty of people did,” said Hiccup dryly. “Including me.”

“That man. What was his name?”

He didn’t have to ask which one. “Dagur.”

Heather’s eyes hardened, fixed on a point over Hiccup’s shoulder. “Dagur,” she repeated, like turning the word over in her mouth before destroying it. “He’s the one behind this.”

“Berk has dealt with the Berserkers before,” said Hiccup. “And with Skrills. Like I said,” he shrugged uncomfortably, “we were the ones who wiped them out the first time. We’ll handle Dagur. And Gothi has done everything that she can.”

“I need to thank Elsa,” Heather added. Her voice softened again, and she hitched the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. The rain continued to pound down outside, and Hiccup couldn’t help a glance upwards, remembering the way that Elsa’s hail had thundered on shields and bare rock. “How is she?”

“Asleep. Well, maybe still asleep.” He was not sure quite how long it had been, save for that his stomach was starting to ache again. Apparently even a small amount of porridge had been enough to wake it up. “She might be awake by now.”

“Maybe when I look less like something a dragon shat out,” said Heather. She pushed back her hair, which he had taken for greasy but which he now realised was just wet. “Probably scare her at the moment.”

Elsa was made of sterner stuff than that, but Hiccup had a suspicion that it was rhetorical anyway. “None of us are quite at our best right now,” he said. “By the way, I’ve spoken to my father. There are some empty houses in Berk, been empty since last autumn. I’m going to see to getting one of them cleared out for you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” said Heather. “I can…”

Her words trailed away on their own, and Hiccup allowed them to do so. Hiccup waited just long enough to see Heather begin to frown, for it to settle in that this one, at least, she was not going to be able to do by herself. It wasn’t hard to guess that she preferred to be self-sufficient, but it was not going to be an option right now.

“When Elsa and Anna came to Berk, they ended up living in my workshop,” he said. “But I’m afraid I’m running out of workshop.” Plus, he hoped, her father would soon be able to live in the same house as her.

“And I’m not going to force you to keep sleeping on your floor,” Heather finished, with an almost-smile in her voice.

“You’ve got me. This is all a ploy to get my room to myself again. Not a very successful one so far, as Snotlout was in it last I checked, but I’m attempting to ensure that the whole of Berk does not gradually try to move into my house.”

He reached out, and put his hand over Heather’s.

“I’ll let you know when we’ve managed to get somewhere waterproofed again. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He squeezed her fingers, glad that they at least were not too cold. “It’s what’s next,” he said, and was relieved when she did not ask him to explain what he meant.


	36. Chapter 36

His heart leapt in his chest when he got home to see Elsa not just awake but out of her room, sitting beside the fire with her arm in a sling. Her hair was clean and wet, and she gave a tired smile as Hiccup was shoved into the room by Toothless and looked at her in surprise, relief, and delight.

“You’re up!” He dragged off as many layers as he could while remaining fit for public view, all but pouring water out of his boot from the rain that had run down it. “How are you doing?”

“Anna will not stop fussing,” said Elsa, with a pointed look.

Somewhat guiltily, Hiccup realised that Anna was in the room as well, sitting at the table and trying to peel sweet chestnuts with rather less success than Elsa had tended to have. Anna muttered a curse and tried to clean out some of the skin from under her nails. “’m not fussing,” she added aloud. “It’s not fussing if it’s deserved.”

“Ah, Hiccup,” said Gobber, emerging from the pantry and brushing off his hand against his arm. “Wondered when you’d be back.”

He tried not to feel as if heat was creeping up his cheeks. “Sorry. Got side-tracked talking to the other riders.”

“Well, your father’s returning the chainmail that you borrowed, but nobody’s going to be venturing to the forge in this weather so I figured I’d stay home with you reprobates. Didn’t think you’d be out so long.”

Hiccup raised his right arm, wool shirt flapping wetly against his skin. “Neither did my clothes,” he said. “I’m going to get changed. Give me a moment.”

Stairs that were manageable normally were not so simple now that there was no balustrade and his right hand was not an option. He grimaced and lurched his way up the stairs, and found his room empty with no sign that Snotlout had ever been there. Frowning, Hiccup towelled himself down and changed as quickly as he could, and wished the balustrade were there on the way down at least partially so he could have slid down it. Although that probably would have hurt as well.

“No Snotlout?” he said to Gobber, as he made his way down again. Toothless was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching patiently.

Gobber closed the pantry door firmly. “No, he took himself off home again. Didn’t want to hang around too much, I suppose. Oh, and your father said to tell you that he’d be talking to the others on the council about having a council trial instead of a public one, if that means anything to you,” he added, with a more pointed look.

For a reply, Hiccup just nodded. He was not sure about discussing the situation with Heather around anyone else, even Elsa or Anna. Talking about finding her somewhere to stay was neutral enough, but talking about anything resembling a _trial_ was far more a matter for the chief. For the time being, he sat down, took a few careful breaths until the stitches across his chest stopped hurting, and put a careful hand to his chest.

“Your ribs?” he said to Elsa, knowing that hers would be far worse.

She twitched as if she was about to shrug, then winced slightly instead. “It hurts more than the ankle did,” she admitted. “But this,” with her right hand, she gestured to her left arm in its sling, “is more annoying.”

At least he had his sword hand still in use, Hiccup supposed. It would have been twice as annoying to have his left hand be the injured one, although he supposed that he probably would not have got out at all if that had been the case. “Yeah,” he responded, with his own mitted wave. “I’m going to be trying to get back onto my foot as soon as possible, I think. The metal one, I mean,” he added, and Elsa’s smile softened.

“I guessed.”

“I think we’re all used to that foot of yours by now, lad,” said Gobber.

Hiccup huffed. “Really? I’m not sure that I am.”

“You’ll get there. Though speaking of that foot, it probably needs to be made a fraction longer again.”

“I’m going to end up walking with a limp if you keep making it longer like this!”

“You’ll end up walking with a limp if I don’t,” Gobber retorted. “Just because most of us waited until we were finished growing to lose a foot doesn’t mean that I’ve never met a young one who didn’t.”

He turned around, scratching his chin and searching for something out of sight, and Hiccup made a half-heartedly rude gesture at his back. Though each time Gobber had adjusted the foot, it had eventually come to feel normal again, Hiccup was not sure that was not just him getting used to it. It certainly felt strange to consider anything as normal as his foot right at that moment.

A thought occurred, and he frowned. “Gobber, does an eye count for Stump Club?”

Eyes were less common, on Berk. Hands and feet, arms and legs, they had been lost to the bites and slashes of dragons, but anything that could take out an eye usually took off a head instead. Gobber paused, cocking his head. “Huh. Suppose it would. Or at least, nobody would object to Snotlout joining us at the tables for Stump Day.” He gave Hiccup an astute look. “That’s what you were referring to, right?”

It wasn’t as if he’d been trying to hide the subject of his question. Hiccup acknowledged it with a hand.

“Eh, we can count him in.”

“You’re not giving him poteen next summer,” said Hiccup. It had been bad enough when they had given it to him. “I don’t want to know what effect that would have.”

“Means you aren’t the youngest any more, either,” said Gobber.

It might have only been by two moons, but Hiccup still sighed. He had been hoping to maintain that title for somewhat longer, and not for any reason of vanity. Accidents would still happen, people would still lose limbs, but he knew that a lack of amputations was a very visible sign of what the peace with dragons had done.

The last thing that he wanted was for a war with the Berserkers to replace the war with the dragons.

“I’m sure Snotlout will be glad to lord it over me,” he said aloud. At least there might be something to console him about the situation.

“Don’t worry,” Gobber said. “Stump Club looks after their own. You know that.”

That much, at least, was true.

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing that he could not fly, but still itching to do _something_ , he visited Nightmane Holsen that evening to arrange to check over a few houses and see which one would need the least work. One of the smaller ones would do fine, he was sure, though he wanted to arrange for one at least big enough that Heather’s father would be able to join her when – not if, he told himself fiercely – he was recovered enough.

The rain was turning to hail, which hurt more but at least left him less soaking wet by the time that he returned home once again to find his father back, with heavy shadows beneath his eyes. Stoick insisted on checking all of Hiccup’s injuries again, although he did mercifully concentrate on the ones that Hiccup could not actually see himself.

It was Gobber who called an end to the evening, taking Stoick aside for ‘a word’ which concluded with Stoick not coming out of the bedroom again and the occasional snore following not long after. Hiccup recognised the brisk efficiency, though it had been more normal to experience it in the wake of another search for Dragon Island.

The next morning hurt just as much as the first one had, which really did not seem fair. The colours of his bruises were really starting to develop, making him look as if someone had been painting his skin with the last scraps of every colour, and his left thigh was threatening to stiffen up where it had been slashed. He managed to stretch out some of the stiffness before getting dressed, and grimaced at the hail thudding against the roof again.

At least it wasn’t as bad as the rain. He made sure to dress in something that had a chance of keeping him dry, opted for his prosthetic and carrying his cane just in case, and was partway through breakfast when Anna and Elsa emerged from their room. Elsa’s hair was drawn into two braids, and he paused to look at it in bewilderment for a moment before realising that it matched Anna’s usual hairdo. That explained a lot.

“You are going out?” she said, taking in his clothes. She tucked a spoon between her teeth and picked up a bowl from the end of the table before crossing to the porridge, and Anna hurried after her.

Hiccup covered his hand with his mouth while he swallowed, before replying. “Yeah. Meeting with Holsen to check up on houses. Find one that’s in good condition.”

“And the meeting of the Council this afternoon,” said Stoick. Hiccup knew what that meant as well, and nodded grimly.

Elsa frowned at the cauldron for a moment, until Anna intervened and started to portion out the porridge for her. Giving her a grateful smile around the spoon, Elsa waited until the bowl was full before backing away and allowing Anna to retrieve her own portion.

“I would like to come with you,” Elsa said, sitting down.

Hiccup nearly jabbed himself in the face with his own spoon. “Pardon?”

When Elsa looked up, she was smiling, but it was in that careful, polite way he had seen from her more than enough to recognise. She took a careful breath, and for a moment the smile faltered. “I would like to get outside.”

That, at least, he understood. “It’s for Heather,” he said. Though there were probably other errands that he could ask Elsa to run, excuses for her to walk about and get some fresh air. “Somewhere for her to stay.”

But Elsa nodded. “I know.”

“Anna? Are you coming?”

Anna glanced across at Elsa, looking momentarily uncomfortable. He knew that she had not been comfortable with Heather before everything that had happened, but the last few days had been too busy to really sit down and talk to her about things. It might not be helping that Elsa’s first return to the outside world was related to Heather, either, even if Hiccup suspected that was chance and not at all design.

“Yeah,” she said finally. There was something about her voice that made Elsa pause and half-frown in her direction. She ran a hand over her forehead, and her eyes and voice both softened. “Sorry. I’m just… still tired.”

“You do not have to come,” said Elsa, gentleness in her voice. She even put down her spoon to put her good hand on Anna’s arm. “I know you have not slept well, and it is cold outside.”

“I’m going with you,” Anna replied.

There was a flicker of something in Elsa’s expression, her brows twitching, but then she squeezed Anna’s arm and drew her hand away again. “All right.” Picking up her spoon, she turned back to Hiccup again, shoulders sitting a little squarer. Though there was not much colour in her cheeks, she already looked better than she had the day before. Steadier, perhaps. “Did you arrange when to meet him?”

“Uh, no, I just said I’d be round in the morning,” Hiccup replied. “Sounds like it won’t be too easy to tell whether the sun’s actually up or not, so…” he trailed off, shrugging.

Looking between the two of them again, he pressed his lips tightly together. Whatever was going on, he doubted that he would be able to get to the bottom of it without talking to each of them separately, and he was not sure how likely he was to manage that just at the moment. They had both made it clear that they were coming with him, though, and perhaps seeing something other than the same four walls would help.

For the time being, he concentrated on getting through breakfast, and bracing himself for the weather outside.

 

 

 

 

 

Nightmane Holsen looked surprised to find not just Hiccup and Toothless, but Anna and Elsa as well, on his front step. But after only a moment’s pause, he nodded and greeted them, grabbed a cloak, and immediately set off in the direction of the first of the houses.

“We did some work on Direstrike’s house spring of last year,” said Nightmane, without preamble. Hiccup tried to listen and keep his balance in mud at the same time, having given up and swapped to his cane before they had even reached the Holsens’ house. “Replaced a few of the beams, checked the crucks. There shouldn’t be anything too severe needing to be done.”

And Direstrike had lived alone; the house was a little smaller than Hiccup’s, and close enough to the edge of town to be quiet and have privacy without being totally isolated. He had not even asked for those traits, just explained that it was for Heather for however long she needed to stay on Berk, but Holsen had not worked with houses for years without developing good sense for them.

“Sounds good,” said Hiccup. His left foot slipped in the mud, and he was grateful for the cane as he caught himself. “Well, at least we won’t have difficulty finding leaks in this weather…”

He thought he heard Holsen chuckle.

The front door had been wedged closed against the vagaries of Berk’s weather, and even after removing the wooden wedges Holsen had to heave to get it to open. The house was dark inside, and smelled faintly damp, but there was a lantern just inside the door that Holsen reached for without having to particularly search. Hiccup had helped Gobber fix a few lanterns over the years for the very purpose of being left in empty houses.

“We had to fix one of the blades on the rear cruck,” Holsen added. “Took a hit from a Gronckle, wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight.”

Hiccup was faintly aware of what he meant, even if his role around houses being worked on had traditionally been to provide nails and try not to break anything, but looked round to see Elsa looking curious and Anna bewildered. He gestured to the upwards-pointed kauna of the ceiling. “One cruck, made up of two blades and the brace. The bits between them are cross-beams.”

“How do you get the curved wood like that?” said Anna, squinting into the shadows above them.

“Get to it before the shipwrights do,” said Holsen. Having seen more than a few of those arguments, Hiccup had to nod in agreement. Holsen usually managed to win out, on account that houses were more important than boats no matter which way you cut it, but in times when there had been particularly bad strikes to both the village and the fleet it had been more of a struggle and Stoick had needed to wade in.

“Check for damp or mould, right?” said Hiccup. There was still a wooden table beside the fireplace, a bench either side of it and a large chair at its head, and doubtless there would be a bed upstairs as well. Often, when a family moved away other members of the village would buy the larger pieces of furniture for silver or iron, but with several people leaving at once there simply had not been the demand.

“Aye, you see to that, I’ll make sure the structure’s sound and there’s no rucking,” said Holsen. He hesitated, with a glance at Elsa and Anna. “Uh, twisting. When one of the crucks twists, and it moves weight around. Risks bringing the building down.”

Anna nodded vaguely, but Elsa was following the lines of the beams with interest. “The weight must affect it,” said Elsa. “How far apart you place them, and how tall. Yes?”

“Well, the strength is more dependent on the angle,” Holsen gestured to the points where the brace met each blade, “than the height. Height is more the length of the wood we can get, and what species it is.”

Though Anna was suppressing a yawn, Elsa was watching closely, the same expression on her face that she had once worn as she watched Hiccup and Gobber talk about smithing and drank in their words.

“Sorry,” said Holsen, catching himself. “Probably more than you wanted to know.”

“No,” Elsa replied quickly. He looked surprised. “It is interesting. The building. You plan how the wooden frames are made, yes? To bear the weight?”

It wasn’t only Holsen who was looking surprised. Anna was frowning at her sister, and even Hiccup found himself staring for a couple of seconds before blinking the thought away and catching himself. Anything that was a new source of words and ideas tended to catch Elsa’s interest, and he would not be surprised if that urge were all the stronger in the wake of what had happened, looking for something to latch onto. Anything that was not fighting.

Holsen continued his explanation as they set about searching the house, explaining the process of the crucks and cross-beams, how houses were built from the inside out in contrast to boats that were built from the clinker inwards. Elsa’s eyes were largely on him, while Hiccup tried to concentrate on looking for weak points or damp but kept finding himself looking back to Elsa again. Before too long, he caught the shine in her eye, the brittle edge to her smile, and was sure of why she was listening so intently.

They checked over the house as a group, and Hiccup spotted a couple of damp spots where the tiles outside would probably need replacing, but Holsen announced that the framing was sound.

“I can get it done today,” said Holsen as they returned to the front door, catching Hiccup by surprise. “Umbra owes me for fixing up her house in the summer, she can give me a hand. We’ve got the spare tiles.”

“Really? That – that would be amazing,” said Hiccup.

“You want to bring that lass on over? Make sure that it suits her. Don’t want to be doing the work twice.”

Hiccup rather doubted that Heather would object to anything that she was given right now, whether or not Stoick would be frustrated enough to enforce it. But with the trial coming in the afternoon, he wanted a chance to speak to Heather about it; to warn her, he supposed. And having the house already picked out might allow him to reframe it as talking about her near future, rather than a full threat of punishment.

All the same, he glanced over at Anna and Elsa. Elsa looked comfortable enough, giving him a slightly enquiring look, but Anna looked a little more wary, tucking her hair back behind her ear.

“It would be nice to give her a sense of where she might be staying,” he said. Perhaps having Heather in another house, allowing more of a sense of normality to return, might help Anna feel less unsettled. “Somewhere that can be more of a… base.”

Heather had said that she was used to travelling, only staying in one place for moons, or a winter at the most. But in the last moon she had either been in an Outcast cell or an outsider in Hiccup’s house, and it could not have been a pleasant feeling. The feeling of being an outsider in Berk, his own village, had been bad enough.

“It sounds like a good idea,” said Elsa. “Where has she stayed these last nights?”

“Duskhowl’s house, I guess,” Hiccup said. “Waiting on her father.”

Whatever had done it, he was not quite sure, but when he glanced over at Anna again her expression had softened. He tilted his head in a silent question, and she nodded.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go get her; no point you all getting wet as well.”

“I think we might have stacked some firewood in here,” said Holsen. “We’ll look at getting that going. Get some light into the place, and some warmth again.”

Hiccup nodded, and took a deep breath. What’s next, Astrid had said. What’s next.

 

 

 

 

 

Heather looked startled at the idea of seeing a house so soon, but cast a rather longer look upstairs where Duskhowl was checking in with Gothi. Hiccup held his tongue and let her weigh the decision, until Duskhowl returned and said that her father was stable, that nothing was changing, that leaving the house would not be some great crime. It took convincing from Duskhowl to get her to leave, and a borrowed cloak that was patched at the bottom over clothes which Hiccup thought he recognised as being Astrid’s. She kept her head down as they walked the short distance, and Hiccup was not sure that it was to do with the mud that made the way treacherous. Perhaps it was better that there were not too many people about.

By the time that they reached the house, Holsen and Anna had managed to get a fire going, but as Heather stepped in and pushed back her hood she drew in her breath sharply. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she tensed as if she were about to bolt, but Holsen straightened up and brushed off his hands, clearing his throat to break the silence.

“Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Nightmane Holsen, I’ve been looking over the structure here.”

“I’m… Heather. Thank you.”

Holsen shrugged. “Want to take a look around? Most of the furniture is still here, big pieces at least.”

He offered her the lantern, and she hesitated for a moment before carefully taking it from him. Hiccup gestured to her cloak, which was dripping on the floor, and with another cautious glance around she peeled it off and draped it over his proffered arm. She glanced over at Elsa and Anna, who were standing close to the fire, and Hiccup wondered if perhaps he should have warned her that there would be other people here as well. He was not sure whether it was better or worse that they were not strangers, that they knew everything that had happened.

“Do you want to…” Heather gestured upstairs, turning to Hiccup.

For a moment, he looked at her blankly, then took a wild guess that she was asking if he wanted to escort her around the house. Having gone from the jail to the fight to not leaving Duskhowl’s side, he supposed he could understand why. But the windows on this building were still small, and with her father still with Gothi he was quite sure that she would have no reason to want to flee. He shook his head. “It’s fine. You go on.”

“Thank you.”

With one last glance around, Heather started up the stairs, hand light on the balustrade and movements careful. Hiccup hung up both of their cloaks on the pegs beside the door, properly sheathed his cane on his back, and crossed to stand with the others. The warmth of the fire was nice, he had to admit.

“So,” said Holsen. “Is there going to be another village meeting? About what happened?”

It should not have been a surprise, but Hiccup was still caught for a moment. He swallowed, and waited for the wave of fear to abate. The fingers of his left hand twitched, aching for Toothless’s touch.

“Probably tomorrow,” Hiccup finally managed. He knew it had only been a few seconds for him to answer, but it felt achingly long. “Once we know the long-term prospects for the riders. And the war council will be meeting this afternoon anyway, so… they might discuss things then.” They all knew about the Berserkers, at least, although Hiccup was not sure that the rest of the village did.

Holsen nodded, murmured, and uncomfortable silence fell over them again. Hiccup could hear the faint sound of Heather’s footsteps above them.

“What do you think Gobber’s got waiting for dinner?” said Anna, abruptly and breathlessly. “We haven’t really cooked for a couple of days, we should this evening. Maybe I should give him a hand.”

If there was one thing that Hiccup did know, though, it was nervous rambling. “Do you know what the pantry’s like?” he prompted. “We’re still, what, a moon and a half from Slaughter Day?”

Which would bring its own challenges, he thought privately. The wildlings always came shortly afterwards, knowing the village had food, and he wanted to get ahead of them this year. Though he was not sure that Elsa would be in any fit state to go, as she had wanted to. It was another issue for later, though, he reminded himself.

Anna launched into talking about what food they had in the house with barely a missed beat, and even Elsa managed to chip in a few ideas. The conversation had managed to turn to the absurdly large cabbages from Mildew’s farm – it turned out that Holsen had not been among the people who had actually seen them, and at first it did not much look like he believed Anna’s gestures – when Hiccup caught a creak on the stairs and looked up to see Heather coming down again.

The hail had been too loud, and Heather too withdrawn, for him to speak to her on the way through the village. He stepped aside from the others, even as Elsa paused for a moment in backing Anna up, and limped over to Heather.

“What happened to your cane?”

He gestured to the scabbard. “Don’t need it so much inside. Solid floors help.”

He saw her glance, then properly stare, frowning. “Is that…”

“I needed it out the way so I could fly,” said Hiccup, with a shrug. “Don’t worry, it’s not another thing that’s common on Berk.”

After a moment, Heather shook her head, the bemusement flitting across her face making her seem much more comfortable, more alive, than he had seen in days. “Just when I think I’ve seen Berk’s weirdest.”

“Come on, I’ll show you the back room,” he said, which he hoped was not too subtle a sign to the others that he wanted to speak with Heather alone. All the same, Heather raised an eyebrow at him, clearly reading something into his words, and kept hold of the lantern as they made their way across the room.

The downstairs back room was almost clear, no bed or large furniture save for a weapons rack and a couple of empty barrels. It had not needed to be an extra bedroom, of course, and Heather looked it over in one easy glance before turning to Hiccup.

“I’m guessing there’s something else you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Yeah.” He took the opportunity to lean against one of the barrels, which might have been sore on the back of his thighs but was at least easier on his stump. “Sorry, subtlety isn’t my strong suit today.”

“Well,” she pointed out the weapons rack, “unless you’re planning to go back to how the trees were chosen to make that, there’s not much story to tell back here.”

He could hear the conversation having sparked up again outside, which was a good sign as well. “Sorry. But, yes. This afternoon, my father’s going to be calling you in front of the council. It’s… well, it’s a trial, essentially.”

“Were you supposed to warn me?” said Heather, voice tight.

Hiccup shrugged. “He didn’t tell me not to.” And if there was one thing that Stoick had learned from raising Hiccup, it was that he needed to specify what Hiccup was not supposed to do. “And I just… want you to know. Rather than walking into something unexpected.”

The word _again_ hung in the air between them. Heather rubbed her right elbow, looking uncomfortable.

“The council is three of them,” Hiccup continued. “My father, Spitelout – Snotlout’s father, I don’t know if you saw him – and Phlegma.”

“Oh, I saw Spitelout,” said Heather grimly.

Who was not going to be in the best of tempers, with everything that was going on. Phlegma had always put her family first, and was not currently angry at the dragon riders in general and Hiccup personally over what had happened in the last few days. Hiccup knew that his father would do his best to be impartial, though, and had the final say if Spitelout and Phlegma were completely at loggerheads.

He wondered how bad Spitelout must have been, to leave an impression on Heather despite everything that she was going through. In any case, it was almost certainly better not to ask.  The back of Hiccup’s right hand was starting to itch, but he resisted the temptation to try to scratch it. That never ended well.

“They all know what happened,” he said. “ _All_ of what happened – the rest of Berk doesn’t know about the Berserkers yet.”

“Duskhowl might.”

“Three parts of being a healer is healing, but the other part is discretion. I’m sure Gothi has enough secrets to ruin anyone on the island.”

Heather huffed. “She did strike me as the sort.”

Truer words had probably never been spoken. Gothi probably knew enough about everyone on the island to leave them unable to show their face in public. Certainly she knew things that Hiccup had angrily called his father, years ago, which would be very embarrassing to bring up nowadays.

“Have you seen her way of writing?”

“That – that is writing, right?” she tilted her head at him. “I’ve not seen it before and, well… I’ve seen a few different scripts.”

Hiccup thought of Kristoff, who they had not seen for over a moon now. Aside from saying that Arendelle continued to turn in on itself, becoming increasingly isolationist, there had been little news as summer turned into autumn. But everything to do with Arendelle, and with the trolls, would need to be held back at least for the time being. They had even meant to keep Elsa’s magic a secret, before everything had changed.

“It’s unusual,” he settled for, “even around Berk. But we’ve got a few who can read it. Pretty old, apparently.”

“And again, Berk proves itself unusually literate,” Heather added. She cast her eyes around the room again, and took a deep breath. “What’s the worst that could come of this meeting?”

His chest ached. “Please don’t think like that.”

“I’m not saying that it will, but I need to know what _could_ happen.” Swinging back to face him, Heather advanced until they were eye-to-eye, only an arm’s reach apart. “Hiccup, I don’t like dealing in _maybes_. I like to know the boundaries.”

He could not help wishing that Toothless were with them, instead of in the front room with the others. Perhaps at another time it would not have felt so unbearable, but at another time it would probably not have arisen at all. “At worst, you would to be made nithingr,” said Hiccup. “We don’t brand them, like some islands. But you’d have to leave by nightfall.”

“And my father?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Heather blinked, jaw clenching and eyes shining for a moment. “He wouldn’t survive leaving,” she said. “But if I left without him – would they still care for him?”

“I don’t know,” Hiccup repeated. “But… I think so. The Berserkers have been our allies for fifty years, but they were our enemies for a lot longer. And the Outcasts have never been our allies at all. He was caught up in the battle, not a part of it.”

“Not a traitor, like I was,” said Heather, her voice suddenly bitter. Anger twisted her expression, and Hiccup straightened up, fumbling for words, when she sighed sharply and looked away. “No. It won’t do to talk like that.”

“Just explain what happened,” he said. “What you did was for your parents’ safety. You aren’t a resident of Berk, and you can’t be expected to know about our feuds with other islands. It was the Outcasts who dragged you into this fight, and the Outcasts who were treating with the Berserkers. And you took wounds for us,” he added, his eyes lingering on her storm-dark cheek.

Inexperienced though she was, out of her depth though she was, she had fought beside them. She could have remained in Berk, safe while the riders risked themselves and their dragons with the hope of – among other things – bringing her parents home. But she came with them instead. Hiccup reached to put her hand on Heather’s shoulder, but when she startled and drew away raised both hands into the air instead.

“Sorry. I think we’re all a little…”

“Tired,” finished Heather, in a word that made it sound like it meant a lot more.

“Yes.”

She nodded again. “Thank you, Hiccup. For the warning. We should probably get back to the others,” she added, more briskly. “Before they wonder if we’ve found a secret passage back here.”

“I think most of Berk has burned down too regularly for anything to be particularly secret.”

“Apart from what Gothi knows,” said Heather. There was something about her tone that was almost teasing, but not quite making it there. Something too sharp, too forced. She paused for a moment, hand just shy of the door. “Before I head back… could I speak with Elsa? I know I’ve got some apologies to make to her.”

“She understands as well,” Hiccup said. For all that he understood the urge to apologise, he was not sure that it would not be premature at the moment, driven by desperation rather than by sense. And for all that Heather did not know, Hiccup was well aware of just how much family meant to Elsa.

Heather’s smile was tight and fleeting. “Thank you. But… it’s her I need to apologise to. Needed to even before she did so much out there.”

It was as if her father’s throat was bared again between them. Hiccup swallowed, too aware of the movement, then gave in and nodded. “I’ll ask if she wants to speak to you now,” he said, hoping that it did not sound too much like he was trying to fob Heather off. But if he had to choose between the two, he knew without thinking that he would protect Elsa first. “She’s still… tired, as well.”

“I’d appreciate it,” said Heather, quietly.

She opened the door, but held it for him and stepped aside, the lantern still in her hand. Beyond, Hiccup could see the others still standing around the fire, Holsen talking about something and making a gesture with his hands that looked a little like it was about a mortice and tenon joint, Elsa watching closely while Anna fiddled with her braid and kept glancing between Elsa and the fire. As Hiccup walked towards them, trying not to limp, Elsa’s eyes snapped round and the smile on her face faded.

“It’s all right,” he said, as he joined them. He gave up, and drew the cane again, just to give himself something to rest a little more of his weight on. It was doubly awkward using it in the wrong hand for his left foot, but it was still better than crutches. “Elsa, Heather was hoping to have a word with you. Would now be all right?”

Both he and Heather knew that, if the council went against her, it could be the only opportunity that Elsa had. But he was not going to put Elsa under that pressure. She looked surprised, drawing up and looking past him to the back door as if the explanation were going to spring fully-formed from the air, but then visibly gathered her thoughts, and nodded.

“Yes. It would.”

She went to walk around Anna, who smartly sidestepped into her way. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.” Elsa’s voice and gaze were both level. Anna stayed in her way for a moment, jaw tightening and hand half-raised to Elsa’s arm, then stepped out of her way once again. Elsa smiled faintly, brushed her fingers over Anna’s shoulder, and left them to it.

It was all that Hiccup could do not to watch her every step of the way, but despite everything that had happened he knew that he trusted Heather to be doing as she had promised and apologising to – or at least talking to – Elsa. Even injured, Elsa’s magic was more than enough for her to protect herself, and whether Heather knew that or not, everything that Heather had done had turned out to be for her parents’ sake.

He had been wrong for the right reasons, Astrid had said. He suspected that he was not the only one.

“Did Anna tell you that the twins thought I’d run away because of the cabbages?” he said, turning to Holsen. Holsen looked bewildered, probably to find the conversation turning back to cabbage again, but shook his head gamely enough. “Looks like it was dragon dung for fertiliser that made them grow so big. And I may have been indirectly behind that particular stunt.”

Holsen gave Toothless a look that was slightly more appraising than usual. “Do you reckon it would work on quince trees?”

Hiccup suspected that he had just found another way to trade for things that they needed over the winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I found myself learning to read this: how to build timber-framed houses. Not my usual archaeological period of study.
> 
> There is a short [missing scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13485594) for this chapter of Heather and Elsa's conversation, since obviously it is outside of Hiccup's POV.


	37. Chapter 37

The last thing that Hiccup expected was to be called to attend the trial. It had been many years since there had been a true trial, rather than Stoick passing judgement on a disagreement, but no matter how much Hiccup was now being expected to step up as heir he did not think that he would even be allowed to attend, never mind that his father would ask him to. Even if Stoick made it clear that he was only to listen, not to speak, it felt strange and ominous as Hiccup followed him to the Great Hall and the rain petered out around them.

Spitelout was already waiting there, scowling from the leftmost of the three chairs arranged on the dais at top of the hall. Frowning, Stoick looked over the scene, then muttered for Hiccup to take his time before striding across the hall and all but jogging up the stairs to speak to Spitelout. Lounging in his chair, Spitelout’s expression did not change as Stoick reached him, gesturing to the chairs in a way that Hiccup thought meant they were to be moved back somewhat.

Spitelout spat a reply; “…last time you tried a traitor…” was all that Hiccup could catch from it. His hand tightened on the handle of his cane, but he kept his tongue. Stoick’s gestures to the chairs became more pointed, but he did not raise his voice, and finally with an exaggerated sigh Spitelout unfolded to his feet and set about moving his chair back about ten feet.

Stoick moved his own chair, then Phlegma’s, changing them from a line to something more like a semicircle and leaving a space between the two. He retrieved another, somewhat smaller, chair to place between then, and as Spitelout sat down heavily picked up one more.

“Pah!” said Spitelout. “First you give her a council trial, and now a seat? We’re already wasting resources on her and her father, Stoick–”

“Spitelout,” Stoick replied, voice no louder but becoming sharp. He set the fifth chair down opposite the others, and though Hiccup could still not help feeling that it would look intimidating he had to admit that it would be better than making Heather stand at the bottom of the stairs while the council sat at the top. “The young woman is only seventeen, and was a captive before she came to us. She has been through a battle. These facts we know,” he added firmly, as Spitelout began to scoff again, “because Hiccup and Elsa saw them pass.”

“A battle she caused,” Spitelout spat, “and she comes back with cuts and bruises. Hardly the worst, is it, Stoick?”

“This trial is about Heather, and not about the Outcasts and Berserkers. Do not take your anger at them out on her,” said Stoick.

The two men glared at each other, Spitelout slumped carelessly in his chair and Stoick standing, cloak about his shoulders. From where he stood, Hiccup could not see his father’s face, but knew him well enough to be sure that he was not reacting well to such an expression. Keeping as quiet as he could between his foot and the cane, he made his way to the smaller chair that his father had added to the semi-circle and sat down, setting the cane on the floor beside him.

It was Spitelout who looked away first, but it was only to turn his angry look to Hiccup. “Aye, and you’ve bought your boy as well. Since when was he part of the council?”

“The council will _be_ Hiccup’s one day,” said Stoick. There was an edge of warning, growing sharper in his voice until Hiccup repressed the urge to wince. “And for now, he is a witness to as much of possible of what has passed. Elsa has seen no more than him, and has significant injuries. Heather’s father–”

“Eirik,” said Hiccup.

Stoick spared him a glance, then nodded. “Eirik’s life still hangs in the balance. He is not awake, never mind fit to give evidence.”

“Oh, evidence? So you’ve no’ made your mind up already, then?"

“I’m not the one talking like I’ve already made up my mind,” said Stoick.

Spitelout opened his mouth, almost certainly to argue further, but the doors to the hall were pulled open and Heather entered, with Phlegma right behind her. Heather pushed back the hood of her borrowed cloak and looked around nervously, looking pale beneath the bruises and drawn even from the far end of the hall. Her eyes lingered on Hiccup, and he shifted awkwardly in his seat.

“Come on, now,” said Stoick. “Let’s be fair about this. I do not want to make a decision on this alone, if the council can come to an agreement.”

Though Spitelout did not speak, his expression became marginally less mutinous, and finally he nodded. With a sigh, Stoick took his seat, and all that Hiccup could do was hope that things would go smoothly enough in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from his own presence, it went much as Hiccup had expected. Heather was calm, detailed and clear in her account of what had happened to her and why she had made the decisions that she did. Even Spitelout begrudgingly admitted that everything she had said matched what she had told him some days before. Phlegma listened intently or asked calm, focused questions, while Spitelout had more challenge in his tone but chose his questions well; even Hiccup could hear that he was trying to catch Heather out with his words. But it did not happen, even as the evening grew on and the wind grew louder outside, even as Heather’s shoulders began to slump and her voice grew hoarser.

Finally, her voice cracked, and she said that she could offer them no more. Stoick nodded, bade her rest for a moment, and spoke in undertones back and forth between Spitelout and Phlegma. Hiccup caught the half of the conversation with Phlegma, but could barely even hear Spitelout’s growled comments and did not hear that side of his father’s words at all. Finally, though, they seemed to come to some sort of agreement, and Stoick sat up straighter in his chair. Heather looked up, expression still calm despite the shadows beneath her eyes.

“Heather Eiriksdottir,” said Stoick, and for a moment Hiccup saw shock in Heather’s eyes at the name, “your actions endangered Berk and gave information and military advantages to our enemies. For this, the charges laid against you are treason, seven injuries of the seven dragon riders who flew to Outcast Island, theft from the home of the Chief, and deceit with the intent to conceal these other crimes.” Stoick paused, and his voice softened. “No charges are laid against you regarding a body not given its true death rites. In the heat of battle, the living are more important.”

Heather’s jaw clenched. It had to be said, formally, of course, and in coming days the same charge would need to be officially laid against the other dragon riders so that they could be cleared of it. But it had to be a hundred times worse to Heather’s ears, and Hiccup did not know whether it would help or hurt that Stoick had not said that it was Heather’s mother.

“You have given your evidence in the presence of the Council of Berk,” said Stoick, “and it is clear that what happened was not of your will. Moreover, you are not a resident of Berk, and although bound by the rules of all Vikings cannot be expected to be tied to ours. Thus you are found innocent with regards to the charge of treason. The charges of injury have been found invalid due to the nature of the battle in which you found yourself.

“On the charges of theft and deceit, however, the Council of Berk cannot but find you guilty,” Stoick continued.

Hiccup watched him carefully, unable to bring himself to look at Heather, and forced his hands not to shake. They were lesser charges, of course, and should not call for banishment, but he had not caught enough to know quite what his father had planned. Stoick, Phlegma and Spitelout had worked together for so many years that they could communicate without needing to spell things out fully.

“For these, repayment must be made. Your debts will be drawn up, and you will be expected to pay back those whose labour or goods have gone to your support, or that of your father, during your time on Berk. For the house in which you stay, you will not be considered indebted, but for work to fix it or materials to furnish it you will have to work or trade as any other member of Berk. Do you have a response?”

Finally, Hiccup managed to look round. Heather paused for a moment, jaw set, and swallowed hard. Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap. “What of my father?” she said.

“He was a captive, rescued. There will be no charges laid against him,” said Stoick, fluidly and immediately. Heather’s tight shoulders relaxed by a fraction. “Until he is recovered, you will be considered the representative of your household and will be responsible for him.”

Phlegma was nodding, gently, but Spitelout was scowling even if he must have at least nominally accepted the judgement.

Heather gave a shaky nod. “Then I accept your judgement and your wisdom. And,” her voice faltered, just for a moment, “I thank you.”

When Stoick spoke again, it was the voice that Hiccup knew from home, not that of the Chief. “Now go,” he said. “Rest. You will need your strength, as much as any of us.”

As Heather rose carefully to her feet, Stoick turned back to Phlegma. This time, Hiccup was just about able to catch his murmured words.

“Make sure there are sheets, food and firewood from the stores. I’ve had a watch on that boat.”

“Aye, Stoick.”

And somehow, despite the fear that had clung to it all, it was over.

 

 

 

 

 

Stoick remained to speak to Spitelout, sending Hiccup on home while Phlegma left with Heather once again. There was only a brief moment that Hiccup was able to meet Heather’s eyes, and she looked more tired than anything else that he could place. He did his best to give her a reassuring smile, but was not sure that it worked.

As he picked his way home, the temperature in the air was dropping fast, and one or two of the particularly strong gusts of wind sent him staggering sideways. It was a good thing they were not trying to sail now. On the heels of that thought came the grim relief that the Berserkers would also be stuck on Outcast Island, at least for the time being, unless they wanted ships sunk and men lost.

The warmth of home was welcome, as was Toothless dropping down from the beams to rumble and rub his head against Hiccup’s stomach. Hiccup dropped to one knee to stroke Toothless’s face in a proper greeting, dodged a lick, and pushed up again with only vague complaining from his muscles. Well, that was an improvement.

“You escaped before your father did, then?” said Gobber. He seemed to have commandeered the table, while Anna was wrestling with overlarge cabbage leaves and a larger knife than Hiccup was normally trusted with. Elsa was sitting close to the fire, and Hiccup saw her cast another glance over the cauldron. There were only so many jobs that somebody not used to having one working arm could do, he supposed.

“Yeah, I think he’s just tidying up a few loose ends,” Hiccup replied. “Want a hand with anything?”

Gobber gave him a long, silent look that managed to very effectively communicate that only one person in the house currently had both hands available.

“Er, let me rephrase that…” Hiccup began.

“If you can keep that Terrible Terror out of the cauldron, it would be a start,” said Gobber, nodding to the fire. Hiccup followed his gaze, then took a couple of steps further around the cauldron to see Joan hunkered under it. Her expression seemed almost thoughtful, until she licked one eyeball. “She’s nearly had her face in it twice.”

“At least you’re easier to spot when you try that,” he said to Toothless. Shrugging off his cloak and outer layers again, he hung them up to dry and retrieved a poker to coax Joan out of the fire.

“Is everything all right?” said Elsa. The concern in her voice caught him by surprise; he felt relaxed, if drained, and was sure that it should have been showing in his posture as he dropped to his right knee and set about retrieving Joan. Hiccup looked up, frowning. “The meeting. You did not say what it was.”

He leant on his left leg. “I’m good. The meeting was… about Heather. It looks like she’s going to be staying, probably until at least spring when the sailing season opens up again.”

“I am glad,” Elsa replied, voice and expressing growing more gentle. “With her father, it would not have been good. I heard her say that the boat was her family’s, yes?”

How Elsa had been able to concentrate on anything else that was going on while they were on that boat, let alone remember it, Hiccup had no idea. Then again, her memory always had surprised him. “Yeah. It’s been under guard, but I guess now she’ll be able to take anything that’s left on it. It’ll give her a start. And, well, we used to get houses burned down on a regular basis. We’re no strangers to getting people set up.”

“I have seen.”

“You know, if…” Hiccup paused, and made use of his mitted right hand to hold the ember-speckled Joan still so that she did not set fire to anything. “I guess I never asked, but… if you and Anna wanted to live in your own house, not here…”

“No,” said Elsa, quickly. Anna swore at her cabbage in Arendellen, apparently not having heard Hiccup’s question. “We are good. Here.”

Hiccup scooped up a huffing Joan in his right hand, and briefly touched Elsa’s knee with his left as he straightened up again. She checked on the cauldron, stirred it; whatever was in the stew, it smelt good, and not at all cabbagey.

It was not too long before Stoick returned, with fine snowflakes in his beard and a weary expression which Hiccup suspected was not much to do with Heather at all. Mercifully, Gobber carried the conversation again, talking about the state of the dragons and what would need doing, and how much better the young male Nadder was doing. That, at least, was heartening to hear.

Though Hiccup excused himself to bed early, he could not sleep, his body tired but his brain uncomfortably awake. He heard the house go quiet and watched it go dark, until he could make out only the faintest outlines of the room around him by the reflected light of the banked fire downstairs.

It was the sound of a foot on the stair that made him look round, and he sat up as he recognised Elsa in the darkness.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was not sure if you were awake.”

“Not sleeping well?”

Elsa shrugged, one-sided. Against her white nightgown, the bruises on her chest and her right forearm seemed more pronounced than ever, but her sling was back in place over the top of it. Hiccup shuffled towards the foot of his bed, drawing up his blankets around him as he did so to form a sort of cocoon, and gestured for Elsa to sit beside him. Even now, he had to push back the instinct to offer her a blanket as well.

“I think my days and nights are a little turned around.”

They had all been up for most of that first night, but Elsa and Anna had been awake longer than any of them. Hiccup waited until Elsa seemed to be sitting at least mostly comfortably beside him, as Toothless got to his feet with a sound of shifting scales and rustling wings and padded right over in front of them. He butted against Hiccup’s knee and chirruped.

“I don’t know what that advice was, bud, but thank you,” Hiccup said. Elsa chuckled.

“Anna is asleep, at least,” she added, after a moment, then adjusted her sling. “I hope that Heather is all right.”

“Me too.” Or at least, as all right as she could be, given the circumstances. Most likely she would be at Duskhowl’s house for at least one night longer, though. “How’s your arm doing?”

Elsa huffed. “It is painful. But not unbearable.”

“Two broken bones in two years,” he could not help blurting. At least by her smile she understood the dark humour of it. “At least I didn’t manage to lose another limb, I suppose.”

Not that it had been that far away. A larger blade, a less-sharp one, a slightly different position of the injury, and Hiccup knew that he could have easily been matching Gobber. In the late spring, his seat at the ‘top table’ of Stump Day – usually reserved for those with two or more amputations – had been either assigned because he was the youngest member or because he and Toothless between them added up to a double amputation. It had depended who he had asked, and how much of the poteen they had been into. He did not particularly want a legitimate seat there.

They sat in silence for what felt like a long while, though it probably was not. The house was quiet and still around them, but he could hear the wind buffeting and moaning outside.

“Does it ever get any easier?” he asked, so suddenly that even to his own ears it was almost sharp. Elsa looked round at him, and Hiccup ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I just…”

In theory, there were plenty on Berk that he could have asked. But he suspected that Elsa might understand the question in a way that plenty of others did not.

“Does it get any easier,” he repeated, “knowing that you’ve killed someone?”

For a moment, Elsa did not reply, but seemed to curl in on herself where she sat. Her head bowed, her shoulders slumped, and Hiccup felt guilt turn over in his stomach that he had asked at all. But he could remember very clearly the moment when his knife had found the artery in the thigh of the first Berserker, and yet worse was the knowledge that there had been others after that, and he could not remember them clearly at all.

“Yes,” she said, finally, little above a whisper.

He realised that he was strangely grateful that she did not try to deflect the question, saying that he had only done what he had to, that it had been for their survival. They both knew that already, and it did not dull the horror of it all.

For some of the things he had said to her in the summer, he felt very foolish, and very young. Like he was now glimpsing the monster inside his own maze.

“You don’t forget their face,” she said. “You don’t forget how it felt… the moment that you realised what you had done. But it gets easier.” She twisted where she sat, reaching to rest her good right hand on his right arm. “Especially when there are those who accept what you have done.”

“I don’t even know if I killed Dagur,” Hiccup admitted. He had said it to his father, but Stoick had moved on, probably correctly. There had been other things to worry about that first night. But it had lingered in his thoughts since, a mocking shadow that laughed the same way that Dagur did. “Whether he was dead, or just unconscious.”

“When your hand is well, you can fly back to Outcast Island,” said Elsa. “Do not land. Just scout, see if there is a sign of him.”

He huffed, almost laughing. “You’re the first person who’s suggested that. Rather than just saying we would deal with it.”

Elsa smiled. “I already know you will be able to deal with it. But… perhaps I am more used to dragons, in Berk.”

Even Astrid, even Hiccup, still had memories of Berk before the dragons had been a part of it. It made as much sense as any explanation he could have managed. “Thank you.” Even if he was not sure that he deserved her belief, after how badly wrong things had gone, he appreciated it. Hiccup took a deep breath; the cut across his ribs panged, but less terribly than it had. “Elsa, I know I haven’t said it yet, but… I’ve been trying to find words. Only, well, I don’t think there are any.”

His words caught for a moment, and Elsa tilted her head but did not interrupt.

“Thank you.” Gods, it was nowhere near enough. “For what – for _everything_ you did. You got us out of there.”

“Everyone fought,” said Elsa. “Everyone got us out of there. I just… gave you the chance.”

“Then thank you, for that chance. I was trying to think of something that I could do, but…”

“You kept Dagur talking.” Elsa delicately touched her fingertips to the centre of her chest. “It took time, to find my magic. To find enough to break the volitmaglaer.”

“It hurt,” said Hiccup, not even bothering to make it a question.

Elsa nodded. He had seen it, of course; during their captivity, and the moment that she had stepped into view of Dagur and had collapsed into Hiccup’s arms. Hiccup might have taken a blade, but it had missed his bones. Astrid and Elsa had been the ones to suffer that particular type of injury. “But it was better than dying,” she said,

Recognising his own dry tone made it strangely funny, sent the urge to laugh fluttering through his chest. Hiccup clenched his gut tightly against the feeling, until he was sure that he could breathe normally again.

“It was easier this time,” Elsa added, after a moment. Her tone had grown sober again, but he could not see enough detail to make out her expression in the darkness. “With the Berserkers. It was easier to choose than to have it happen by accident.”

And it had been bad enough to make the choice. Hiccup kept the thought to himself, and turned further so that he could reach across and wrap his arms around Elsa. She responded as best she could, turning her face into his shoulder, and he let the silence stretch out around them. He had meant to talk to her about Anna, and about Heather, when he got the chance, but somehow it seemed too petty and small compared to everything that they had said. Instead he closed his eyes, held on as tightly as he dared, and wondered how they had managed to get this far at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup awoke bundled in his blankets, lying back-to-back with Elsa. Not the easiest in a narrow bed, and he honestly wondered how he had not fallen off during the night as he carefully sat up. Elsa, of course, seemed to wake up as soon as he did, but hurried downstairs to make sure that Anna did not wake up by herself and worry.

Each morning seemed to make things a little clearer. He dressed, had breakfast, then armed himself with a shoulderbag and a large cabbage and set off around the village with what he hoped was an air of determination. Or at the very least, not total insanity, which was what Gobber looked to be contemplating as he held the door open for Hiccup and Toothless to exit.

It would be a long while before anyone would be wanting to spread muck on their fields; the soil would be too frozen, too hard, or too wet until at least the spring. But the time would give the academy to switch to a second pit and let the first one sit for a while. Since everyone knew what a questionable farmer Mildew had been – cabbages had been one of few things he had been remotely capable of growing – the size of the cabbage Hiccup had borrowed should, by itself, have been some sort of incentive.

Light snow was falling, or at least following some sort of path from the sky to the ground, although the wind was sending it in wild directions along the way. Hiccup was sure that he got some up his nose. But he kept on, plucking from his memory which people he knew that might have glass, or pottery or copper bowls, or pieces that could do for crucibles. He had no idea what Heather might have on the ship, which his father had said he would be accompanying her to that same day, but he wanted to gather what he could all the same.

The way that Heather had made the smoke bombs, the strange name _bomfuvos_ that she had given them, had to come from one thing.

Alchemy.

By mid-afternoon, the sky was already dark with clouds and the snow was growing both thicker and more invasive. Toothless was wearing an unimpressed expression, eyes half-closed, the cabbage in his mouth so that Hiccup could use his free hand to support the shoulderbag and regret not picking up a larger one.

He could see light around the edges of the door and shuttered windows of the house that Heather had been given, although he did have to knock with his left elbow instead of his first. Heather opened the door and looked at him in bewilderment for a moment, then turned to Toothless, saw the cabbage, and turned to incredulous instead.

“I should probably invite you in,” she said finally, stepping back out of the way. Hiccup picked his way in without dropping any of what he was carrying, and headed straight for the table that was now pushed back against the wall away from the well-built fire.

“Sorry, right, thank you. Didn’t think that through when I picked up all of this.”

Toothless followed him into the room, and put down the cabbage to sniff the air. Closing the door behind them, Heather surveyed them both, starting to take on the sort of expression that Gobber had been wearing when he saw Hiccup off in the first place.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, slightly breathlessly. He took a couple of the most precarious pieces off the top and placed them more safely on the counter. “I got these for you.”

“Uh…” Heather scanned the motley collection, tucking her hair back behind her ear. She patted Toothless’s head, without looking round, as he wandered over to stand beside her. “Thank you?”

“I know, it looks like junk.” He held up his hands, turned, and leant back against the table. Still not all that comfortable, but at least it took some of the weight off his leg. “Once I’m up to getting into the forge again, I should be able to shape a proper retort for you – we don’t have much in the way of copper, but we’ve got iron or steel, and you have to go hotter for those anyway.”

“This is – alchemy equipment?”

The surprise in his voice made him pause, sheepishly. “Uh… we had this book, I mean, we don’t have a _lot_ of books around Berk, but I’ve read as many as I can get hold of. And one of them talked about alchemical tools, and I’m _pretty_ sure that’s where the smoke bombs came from.”

Sighing, Heather wrapped one arm across her chest, but nodded. She crossed to the table and picked up a glass bottle, slightly uneven and green-tinged and the sort that Johann would struggle to sell on any island large enough to actually have its own glassblower. There was no sign of judgement in her eyes, at least. “When I was a kid – eight or nine, I think – I came down with a fever. I burned up, I had this bright red rash, I could hardly breathe. It was so bad that the first island that my parents tried to land on turned us away, but we finally made land on some island or another, I don’t even remember the name.”

Turning, Heather rested her hip against the table top. She passed the glass from hand to hand as she spoke, spinning it a half-turn in the air each time.

“The healer on the island, though? He worked with an alchemist, who had travelled north and settled there. And she had this way of processing white willow that made something more effective, something stronger. My parents were sure that it saved me. And while I was recovering, I was fascinated with what this alchemist did. My mother traded for one of her books, a basic one, she said, and it took me moons to read the book but… years to understand it.”

“And you kept going,” Hiccup surmised.

“Alchemy ties into so much.” Heather gave the glass bottle more of a twist, sending it spinning in her hands. “Numbers and farming and healing and… so much of it ties together, sooner or later. Except magic.” Her hands stilled, so tight on the glass that her knuckles grew pale, and she turned her gaze towards the idly popping fire. Now that Hiccup looked, it did have the shape of one that might be built for a forge, rather than necessarily one for a home hearth. But that could have just been the habits of another island, or a motley mixture of them. “I heard about it from time to time. Island to island. But it was always just a story from a strange land, something that happened long ago, or far away. And suddenly Berk _is_ that far away.”

“Well, we’d certainly count as a strange land,” he said. He still was not sure what to make of Heather’s fascination with Elsa’s powers, but he supposed that there could not really be any such thing as a _normal_ reaction to magic. “I just… I thought these might help. To have something to do.”

Heather nodded to two crates that stood against the far wall, almost lost against the shadows and the bare wood. “Those are from the ship. What the Outcasts left. I still need to go through them. And… I’m grateful, really I am, but I can’t accept this.” Setting down the bottle, she straightened up again, and Hiccup followed her upright. He reached out as if to touch her arm, but she stepped away so fluidly that it almost looked like an accident. “I already owe you too much. I can’t accept more.”

If he were honest, Hiccup had little doubt that his father was going to quietly not mention the majority of whatever ‘debt’ Heather might owe to the Haddock household. But he was not sure that was what she wanted to hear. “Well,” he said, only having to draw out the world a little while the wheels of his brain ticked into place, “that’s fine, because I was actually going to ask you a favour in return for these.”

That seemed to gain her interest. Heather looked up sharply, shoulders shifting from their slight hunch. “A favour?” she echoed.

“How much do you know about different alloys?”

“I’ve… read about them. Seen various different steels over time, seen how iron is smelted. But I wouldn’t count myself an expert.”

Hiccup reached for his Gronckle iron knife, before remembering that it was not at its usual place on his hip. In a way, it was strange to feel its absence after a year in which it had proved so invaluable, but even as he thought of it he remembered how it had cut through flesh, and felt unsteady again. “The knives that Elsa and I had, when we came to Outcast Island,” he said. “We’ve been calling them Gronckle iron – they’re some sort of steel alloy, but not one that Berk has ever seen before. Meatlug, the Gronckle, she produced the metal not long after she came here, and we don’t know what she ate to do so.”

“Like… a walking smelter of her own.”

“Pretty much.” From the way that it fell from Heather’s lips, it did not sound like she was turning Meatlug into a _thing_ , just describing her capabilities. He had heard people talk about dragons in so many worse ways. “But the Gronckle iron? Is amazing. It’s hard _and_ tough, it gives an edge that just about never needs sharpening, it’s highly reflective and it doesn’t rust or corrode.”

“I’m starting to see why you like it so much.”

He shrugged. “The ductility wasn’t up to much, but that might have been because we couldn’t get the forge hot enough. We could only work it to red-hot, not white-hot.”

“Well, I know a little about iron alloys, but not that much, I’m afraid,” said Heather. “I couldn’t guess what went into it.”

“Guess, no,” he replied. “But if I gave you a whole bunch of scrap iron, whatever other rock samples you needed, and access to… say, a Gronckle for smelting, and a Nadder to check melting temperatures, since they’ve got the hottest flame… do you think you could work it out?”

This time, it seemed to chase away whatever words Heather might have been thinking; she simply stared, lips slightly parted, as if Hiccup were suddenly going to announce this was some giant joke at her expense.

“We really need to know what goes into Gronckle iron,” he continued. It still didn’t look like Heather was going to manage much in the way of a reply. “There’s three of us in Berk who can work iron properly, and I’m out of action,” he raised his right hand, “Dogsbreath only tolerates dragons, and Gobber’s still having to do his blacksmithing for the rest of the village. For the first time in a long while, we _want_ a good hard winter, enough to keep the Berserkers on Outcast Island. But that still doesn’t give us a lot of time, and I am going to be busy.” That much, he already knew, hand injury or no. “We need the recipe, and…” he let his voice soften just a little, let the inevitable torrent of words slow. “And I think you need something to do.”

“One day from the trial, and you’ve already found me a job,” said Heather. It did not even pretend to answer the question that he had not quite asked, and he let it drop with a sheepish expression. “I’ll put my mind to it. Thank you, Hiccup.”

Whatever else he might have wished to say died on his lips as the blaring of the great horn cut through even the blustering wind outside. One long, two short, a breathless pause, and then the same pattern again.

“What is that?” said Heather. Her posture grew taut. “It isn’t an attack, is it?”

“No. Just a boat,” Hiccup replied, but he did hurry over to Toothless and set about giving his saddle and tail the quickest of checks to make sure the wind had not pulled anything apart. “But I need to head down to the wharves. Now.”

“A _boat_? In _this_ weather?”

“Yes.” And an unidentified one, at that. Satisfied that Toothless’s saddle was in place, Hiccup straightened up, thighs protesting. Toothless was alert now, flaps back and eyes wide, wings perked at his sides. Hiccup made for the door. “Which, if it sounds stupid? Is because it is. I’m sorry, I really have to go.” Just before he pulled it open, he paused, and caught Heather’s eye one last time. “And Heather? I’m not doing this out of pity. I really do need that alloy, and I really am glad that you might have the brain to figure it out.”

Her smile was thin, but he thought it might be genuine all the same. “And thank you. For trusting me with it.”

 

 

 

 

 

He wished that he could have said more, but the horn blared its pattern again and it was a stark reminder against his thoughts. With one last nod, he hurried out into the near-horizontal blasts of snow, cursed, then cursed harder as snow and sleet managed to get right into his mouth. The ground was not yet cold enough for the snow to be settling, which was one mercy, but it was a small one as he struggled into Toothless’s saddle and the two of them battled into the air and lunged towards the docks.

Even Toothless had to keep his wings partially-pulled against the wicked conditions, and Hiccup was wondering whether taking to the air was a good idea at all until he reached the top of the steps above the wharves, looked down, and felt his blood run cold as he saw the ragged remains of a Berserker crest on the sails of the ship below.

They plummeted down, wind whistling around them, and pulled out of the dive to land with a heavy thud on the wooden planks. Toothless’s wings were still wide and threatening, his teeth extended and a snarl bursting from him. But Stoick was already on the docks, axe in his hand but lowered, and Hiccup put his hand on Toothless’s head as he slipped out of the saddle as well.

Clenchjaw stood on the gangplank of the Berserker boat. The right side of her head was a bloody wound, ear cut away, and she had a black eye and split lip. She was wearing only a light tunic, which was stuck to her with water and snow, and was shivering in tight bursts as she stood in front of Stoick with her hands outstretched, palms upwards.

“Explain yourself,” Stoick barked.

The wind howled above them, but at least within the wharves there was relative calm. “We give ourselves to Berk’s mercy,” Clenchjaw said. It looked like at least one of her front teeth had been broken. “We don’t side with Dagur or his men.”

Stoick glanced over at Hiccup; the question in his eyes was well-hidden, but Hiccup knew to look for it all the same. Truth be told, Hiccup was not sure what to make of it either, and shifted his weight in a way that hid the slight shrug that he gave Stoick in reply. There were a few people gathered a way behind them, but they were all clearly looking to Stoick for what to do, weapons at hand or drawn but not yet raised.

Hiccup looked back over the boat again. There were maybe twelve or fifteen of them altogether, in a rickety excuse for a snekke that had ragged holes in the sail and several inches of water onboard. Some people were managing to sit on the benches, but some were slumped, and all looked to be injured. Blood stained the water, the people, their clothes. All of them save Clenchjaw had ropes around their waists, lashing them to the gunwhales.

He stepped close to his father; at least he could talk normally, and not worry about being overheard with the wind. “The Berserkers betrayed the Outcasts,” he said. He had seen Outcasts killed by the dozen; Dagur and his men had killed far more than Hiccup and the riders had. It would not surprise him if some Outcasts refused Dagur’s rule, but he knew as well that they had to be cautious.

Stoick nodded, just a fraction of a movement. “I say we hear them out,” he replied. When Hiccup nodded and stepped back away, Stoick drew himself up and raised his voice again. “You will be escorted to our Great Hall.” The jail, of course, was nowhere near large enough to hold all of them. “And we will hear what you have to say.”

Clenchjaw nodded, and though her jaw was set Hiccup thought that he saw some relief settled about her. She nodded to a crate at the stern of the boat, covered over, but did not move her hands from where they were, outstretched. “As a sign of goodwill – there were weapons your people left behind. We brought what we could. But some of them,” she nodded to the others in the boat, “won’t be able to walk up those steps.”

This time, when Stoick glanced over, Hiccup shook his head. For an ally, he would gladly have used the dragons, but that was a step too far for now.

“We have a winch to the top,” said Stoick.

“Thank you,” Clenchjaw said, the sound almost lost beneath the wind and the snow. Her shoulders sagged, just slightly. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole 'alchemy' side is taken from the online game School of Dragons, where Heather ~~had a terrible set of clothes~~ talked about the chemistry and physics side of a number of the games and quests.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter containing significant description of injury - Clenchjaw's, as mentioned last chapter.
> 
> This chapter contains references to rape and to murder, as well as to disrespectful/irreligious treatment of human remains.

There were fourteen of them. All Outcasts, twelve men and two women, all of them with injuries that looked hauntingly similar to what Hiccup and the riders had arrived with. Terse silence dominated as they climbed or were lifted to the level of the village, and they were escorted by armed Berkians to the Great Hall itself, the wind still growing worse around them. Even the worst-injured of the Outcasts refused stretchers, preferring to lean on their fellow islanders than even accept a cane or hand.

When they reached the Great Hall, people shouted at the sight of the Outcasts, and Hiccup saw the flash of steel as people jumped to their feet.

“Silence!” Stoick shouted, sound seeming to echo. People obliged, stilling, but did not lower their weapons. Spitelout was among them, Hiccup saw, while Phlegma was speaking to Fishlegs’s mother over one of the huge cauldrons at the head of the hall. “I need twenty to remain here with their arms, and the rest of you to clear the halls. Is there a rider present?”

Fishlegs stepped out from among the crowd, raising his hand tentatively.

“Good. Fetch Gothi, we may need her. The rest of you, return to your homes.” Turning back to the Outcasts, Stoick might have lowered his voice, but it kept the ring of an order about it as he pointed to the left-hand side of the hall with its empty seats and benches. “To this side.”

“Come on,” said Clenchjaw; Hiccup wondered whether it was to stave off grumbling from the others. But most of them looked too spent for it, a ragged group that limped and stumbled over to sit on benches or sink to the floor in blood-streaked puddles.

“Hiccup, stay with them,” Stoick said.

Hiccup did a double-take, not expecting the words in the slightest, but by the time he caught hold of the words properly his father was striding away to hurry out the other Berkians without causing more of a scene than was necessary. At a glance, there were more than enough volunteers to remain.

He did his best to look something like in charge, which felt even harder than usual with the mitt on his hand and bruises and cuts making him stiff. He pushed his hair back off his face and followed the Outcasts; Clenchjaw, the last one standing, seemed to give up and sank down to sit on one of the benches, looking out over the rest of them. She looked up as she saw him, with shadowed eyes.

“You saw what the Berserkers did,” she said.

“You should wait, and tell my father,” Hiccup replied, but he was sure that she heard the ‘yes’ in his answer all the same. Because yes, he had been there, as Dagur had slid his sword into Alvin’s gut, as the Berserkers had sprung their trap. “Can I get water, for your men?”

She nodded. “It didn’t rain that much.”

There were barrels of water on the far side of the Hall, and Hiccup grabbed the nearest Berkian, Young Flounderson, and send him to roll one over and bring some cups. They would probably need it to deal with any injuries, besides. But none of the Outcasts had armour or weapons on display, and most looked defeated, harrowed.

After a time that felt painfully long, Stoick returned, just as Young Flounderson pushed the barrel of water upright once again. Spitelout and Phlegma were both with him, and none of the tension of the previous day was in the air between them. Heather might have been one thing, but the Outcasts brought out a united front.

“What happened?” said Stoick, bluntly. “Why did you come here?”

“Alvin made a deal with the Berserkers,” said Clenchjaw. Her voice was hoarse and her eyes red from seawater. “In return for the Skrill, the Berserkers would help the Outcasts find a better island to live on. But the Berserkers betrayed us.”

Stoick just nodded; that much, he had heard.

Clenchjaw looked, unwavering, at Hiccup. “Six people died when the riders attacked. At the doors. The Berserkers have killed fifty. Perhaps more. We couldn’t even keep track.”

Half the island. Hiccup could not help his sharp intake of breath, but Stoick did not look round.

“Apparently Savage,” she spoke the name like a curse, “made his own deal with Dagur. Said that Alvin wasn’t to be trusted, need to be taken out. Savage sold us out for a chance to lick Dagur’s arse. There were a couple of dozen who knew about the betrayal, had already sworn to Dagur. The rest of us were told to follow him or be killed. This,” she pointed to the bloodied right side of her head, “was a warning for refusing him once. Most people didn’t get a warning. The Berserkers who died that night got a proper funeral – the rest of the bodies? Were just burned. Like we were animals to them.”

“Why here?” said Stoick.

“The storm hit before we even left the wharves,” said Clenchjaw. “You think we’d have made it anywhere else? Besides,” she waved to them, “none of us were Berkians. Nobody committed a crime here. And you’re the only island that already knows about the Skrill.”

“You think that our mercy is better than theirs?” Stoick said.

Clenchjaw snorted. “Dagur has no sense of mercy. But perhaps Berk has a sense of justice.”

The doors of the Great Hall opened again, and Gothi entered with Fishlegs and Meatlug not far behind her. Fishlegs looked nervously over the Outcasts, resting a hand on Meatlug’s back, but did not back down as he came to join the rough semi-circle of Berkians that had formed. They stood uneasily, not talking, as if to pin the intruders in place.

“Outcasts of Outcasts,” Clenchjaw added at a mutter. She swiped at her lower lip, and it left a streak of blood on her hand.

“What are their crimes?” said Stoick. Clenchjaw shrugged, and his frown deepened. “It will matter, if you would stay here.”

“I don’t know,” she replied, with a glare. “I just know that they weren’t committed here. Nobody much cared on Outcast Island, you realise that soon enough. As long as you didn’t commit more, Alvin didn’t give two fucks.”

Alvin dead, and Dagur still living. Strange, how that could be the worst outcome of that bloodstained night.

Sighing, Stoick looked over the other Outcasts, then turned to catch Gothi’s eye. She cocked her head, and he simply nodded in return; she tapped Spitelout’s arm pointedly, then strode straight towards one of the Outcasts who was lying on the floor, so still that even his breathing was barely visible. Stoick’s hand clenched into a fist, safely at his side where probably only Hiccup would be all that aware of it, and for a few long moments he held Clenchjaw’s gaze as if searching for something in her eyes. What it was, Hiccup could not even begin to guess.

“We can give you information,” she added, finally. “In return. About Dagur’s men, and his boats. Even about that Skrill;” her gaze swung round to Hiccup again. “Savage told him that I was one of the ones that had been shown how to start dealing with dragons. Probably why Dagur bothered giving me a warning. He ordered me to work with the Skrill in those first days, before he could get close to it himself.”

Information that they desperately needed. Hiccup felt his heart speed up, even as his throat tightened. He had seen well enough how Dagur controlled the Skrill – with blades and old words – but it sounded as if what Clenchjaw knew could still be of great use to them. Just how much Dagur had taken from Alvin’s knowledge, from what Alvin had stolen of Hiccup’s.

“I will speak to each of them in turn,” said Stoick, finally. “And they can explain what they did that brought banishment on them. If they are found to be lying – and I know the other chiefs of the Archipelago, I know what passes on other islands – then they will be subject to banishment again. Otherwise their crimes will be taken into account. Does that sound just to you?”

“We have no choice,” Clenchjaw replied. Hiccup was almost impressed by how little bitterness there was in her voice, by the stony acceptance dominating it. “That you have not killed us on the spot makes you better than the Berserkers.”

“I have long considered that something to aspire to,” Stoick said, almost sadly.

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow, Hiccup found himself cleaning the injury to the side of Clenchjaw’s head. Not that he had all that much knowledge about cleaning wounds, but Duskhowl had needed to stay with Eirik and unsurprisingly any number of Berkians did not want to interact with the Outcasts, let alone help them. He at least had some practice with cuts over the years, and a stern enough stomach, to handle the ragged star of bared flesh, the dark hole of her ear canal at its centre.

Stoick finally brought over a chair so that he could sit opposite Clenchjaw, and spoke to her at a level that was clearly meant for her, and not for all of the Outcasts at once. “Dagur kept you alive because he thought you could work with the Skrill,” he said simply.

“Yes. Savage just about pissed himself faced with a Gronckle, never mind a Skrill. And the Skrill was angrier – it snapped, fought. Injured several of the Berserkers. Dagur figured I might have a chance.” She shrugged, and Hiccup quickly had to pull his hands away so as not to get water in her ear. “Or I was disposable.”

“What can you tell us about the Skrill? Its treatment?”

“Dagur did as Alvin said, but he didn’t like it,” she said. Her hands were still tight around the empty cup in her hands, and her feet were planted firmly on the floor. Suspecting that it would be best if he were quiet, as invisible as he could manage, Hiccup swapped from the first bowl, of now-bloody water, to the second of garlic vinegar that Gothi had given him. He knew from experience that it stung, but at his first tentative dab Clenchjaw did not even flinch. “Alvin told him what to feed it, that it needed fat and bones and not just the lean meat Dagur wanted to give it. How much food it needed. They checked the wings – it’s got a bad injury to its left, a rip, won’t be able to fly for at least a moon or two. An infected wound on its tail that needed cleaning out; Dagur sent me in to do it. Once they put the old collar on, though, it went tame.”

“Collar?” Stoick frowned.

“It’s how they control them,” Hiccup said. “Dagur must have found some record, or an old one that’s been kept up. It’s a leather collar,” he gestured across his neck, “with blades that cut into the skin. Dagur had hold of a chain attached to it.”

“He leads, that thing follows,” said Clenchjaw grimly. “Suppose I would too, with knives in my neck.”

“And he uses Old Berserker words to give it orders,” Stoick concluded. Though she hid it quickly, Hiccup saw the flicker of surprise in Clenchjaw’s eyes, the slight raise of her brows. Then she pushed it away, hardened again as Stoick stroked his beard. “He must have found some source of information from Berserker Island as well, then.”

There was a long, heady pause. Hiccup hastily finished washing the wound the second time, and looked around for where Gothi might be to dress it. That, he did not feel confident enough to try.

“Very well,” said Stoick. “Thank you. This is of great use to us. I am sorry that I cannot offer unconditional pardons to you all, but–”

“No,” she cut him off. “I get it. You need to protect your island. But I promise you, none of us is as much of a risk as Dagur is.”

“That much is clear.”

Hiccup thought of Astrid’s broken arm, of Snotlout’s torn-away eye, and could not help but agree. The wild boy chief who had been a nuisance in the spring had become a terrible threat before winter had even come.

“What of you, then?” Stoick continued. “I said I would hear you out each in turn. What is your crime?”

Clenchjaw smiled, thin and only an edge away from cruel. “I killed a man,” she said, simply. “If I’d waited an hour longer, it would have been lawful, but because the sun had not set I was a murderer.”

“A man who had been declared nithingr,” said Stoick. She nodded. “Which island?”

“The Waterlands.” It was a long way east, and Hiccup saw his father raise his eyebrows in surprise. Clenchjaw tugged up her right sleeve to reveal her wrist. Beneath the faint silvery scars of burning, there was a clear, stark ᛗ. It had been carved into her skin, darkened with some material to leave a raised, bold scar perhaps two inches square. “A long way, I know. But every isle nearby would have taken me for a murderer. I’d heard of Outcast Isle. I figured they wouldn’t care, at least.”

“They probably have those who’ve killed more than once,” said Stoick. Letting her sleeve slip back into place, Clenchjaw simply shrugged again. “What matters to me is: why did you kill him?”

“He raped me.” Clenchjaw spoke flatly, and it was Stoick who gave a minute flinch. “My brother called him to hólmganga, and he never showed. If I’d waited until sundown it would have been lawful,” again, the word, bitter on the air, “but I found him at his house before the sun reached the horizon, and put him down like a sick beast. Do you blame me?”

“No,” said Stoick, quietly.

Clenchjaw sat back, posture softening again from its confrontational pose, and seemed to notice Hiccup at her side once again as she looked him up and down. “You probably shouldn’t have heard that,” she said. “But I suppose if you’re old enough for battle it’s too late to coddle you.” She turned back to Stoick. “I’ve been on Outcast Island eight years. Lost two lovers and a child. But I was Alvin’s left hand, and it wasn’t an easy life, but it was a life. And the Berserkers have torn it down.”

“I’m sorry.” There was nothing but honesty in Stoick’s voice, and a sadness in the way that he leant back into the chair. “About Alvin, as well.”

“I know he was a friend of yours once.”

“Many years ago, yes. But the world changes;” Stoick sighed. “For years, the Outcasts have been our enemies, since before Alvin became one of them. But alliances change, and if you are willing to declare against Dagur and work with Berk, then yes, we will offer you shelter.”

She raised her empty cup to him, an echo of a toast. “That’s the first thing in a long while that I’ve been glad to hear.”

 

 

 

 

 

“So,” said Hiccup, when they finally managed to make it home. The sky had been dark for most of the day, and he had no idea what time it even was, just that tiredness was seeping back into his bones. “That’s going to change the next village meeting.”

“Aye,” admitted Stoick. “It will. And close to the last one, as well.”

He reappeared from the pantry with a block of ice held to his forehead, helmet tucked under his arm; Hiccup considered doing the same, but decided that sitting on the floor beside Toothless and close enough to the fire to dry off sounded like a much more inviting prospect.

“Well, at least Heather’s not going to be the most-disliked person in the village any more,” said Hiccup, not managing to keep the bitterness in his voice. He went to put his head in both hands, then remembered that he had to settle for just the left. “Gods, this is a mess.”

“At least we know the state of Outcast Island.” Stoick sat down heavily, his chair creaking. Over his shoulder, Hiccup could see the door to Anna and Elsa’s room open, and Elsa look out cautiously. “Dagur is alive, but his ships and his Skrill are in no state to be leaving the island yet. We have time to regroup.”

“With regards to those forces,” said Hiccup. “But what about Berserker Island? He might have more waiting there, with instructions of what to do even if he can’t return to them.”

“Hmm. Mystery Isle or the Islands of the Quiet Life are the ones closest. They might know of any movements, and we’ve never had conflict with the Quiet-Lifes, at least.”

“This… sounds political,” said Anna, sliding out of the room from behind Elsa. She stepped closer into the circle of firelight. “What happened today?”

“Deserters from the Outcasts,” said Stoick, before Hiccup was able to get a word in edgeways. Anna looked at him in astonishment, but he gestured for her to take a seat and she hastily pushed a stool over so that she could do so. “Or more rightly from the Outcasts that the Berserkers have conquered. I would fear that Dagur considers Outcast Island the first part of his empire.”

“Oh, great,” said Anna. She sat down heavily. “That sounds like just what the archipelago needs.”

“You’ve been around me too long as well,” said Hiccup. He leant against Toothless’s side, until he got jabbed in the shoulder by the edge of the saddle and realised that he could probably take it off altogether. Sitting up straighter, he set about undoing buckles. “You might be right, Dad. But sailing in this weather isn’t an option. You heard what Clenchjaw said – they lashed themselves to the boat to avoid being washed away, and that was just Outcast Island to here.”

“Sailing, no. But dragons, perhaps.”

Hiccup paused for a moment, partway through taking off Toothless’s saddle. “You’re ready for other islands to see us on dragons?”

“Do we have much choice?” said Stoick, not grimly but meaningfully.

It was a big step; he of all people knew that. For all that Hiccup wanted instinctively to tell _everyone_ , to tell the world what dragons were and would be, he knew that it would change things. It had changed enough in Berk, been challenging enough in Berk. But he suspected that Dagur would be introducing more islands to the notion of dragons as weapons before too long, and as unprepared as Berk was it could only be better to introduce islands to the idea of dragons as allies first.

“I guess not.” He looked to Anna. “I’m sorry, I know that Arendelle has sort of fallen by the wayside, but…”

She shrugged, Northur becoming careful. “Arendelle is… well, it’s stable, at least, I guess. Kristoff said he’d tell us if anything else major happened. You guys have an actual hostile…” she searched for a word long enough for Hiccup to become a little concerned about whether profanity was going to burst out; “ _Berserker_ practically at your door.”

“But this could work in Arendelle’s favour,” said Hiccup quickly. “We make ties, make connections. I go to the wildlings, this winter. If we get people on our side, then even if they won’t fight with us they’ll not stand in our way. The Silver Priests won’t have allies among the Vikings. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but–”

“If there’s any help I can do translating, or writing things down in Arendellen, or–”

Hiccup nodded, before Anna could get too carried away. “We’ll see what we can manage. Thank you, for understanding.”

“Aye,” said Stoick.

As Elsa nudged over a stool to sit down as well, Anna reached up to grab her hand, and smiled tightly. “I’m safer here than in Arendelle, and I can actually _see_ the world rather than just what the Silver Priests are telling me. I can’t imagine that there’s more I’d be managing to do if I were back in the castle.”

On that, she was probably correct, but it didn’t stop Hiccup from feeling guilty that Berk had descended into chaos at just the point that Arendelle also needed help. “Whatever happens, Dagur and his men are moving by boat. We aren’t. We can make the most of that.” He took a deep breath. “And this winter, we up the search for Ashblade. If Dagur wants a fight, he’s about to find out he’s picked the wrong island for it.”

“I think he already knows that,” said Stoick, taking Hiccup by surprise. “With what’s happened, I’m sure that he’s recognising what Berk is capable of.”

“The beginnings of it, at least,” Hiccup said. “He’s seen some of what we can do. I say that this winter, we get ready to show him what we’ve _really_ got.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, _How to Walk in Lightning_ comes to a close! It is deliberate for this fic to end here - they've torn up their peace, and the next couple of fics will be about what the characters do in response to that.
> 
> The first chapter of the next fic, _How to Speak a Foreign Tongue_ , will go up next Friday. I will, however, be dropping down to fortnightly (instead of weekly) updates - 2017 was a rough year for me, and I've fallen behind on my drafting. I don't want to risk my posting getting too close to my drafting, so that I have time to keep making my edits and keeping everything within continuity.


End file.
